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The practical effect of the Cohesion Fund thus far has been channeling vast amounts of €€€ to the same far-right governments, though, arguably helping them maintain the economic growth that has, in the end, underpinned their rule (and also served as an avenue of corruption, ie. Orban's childhood friends getting real paid and so on). Of course, one can see the (heretofore ineffective) threat to end that money as EU pulling leash... but another way of seeing it is that it really is bad when Orban sends my tax euros to some guy's companies because he can, and it's good if that sort of a thing is ended even if Orban's show of picking conspicuous fights with EU is effective for making it look to some like he's just being punished for loving his country too much.
I don't disagree that you can have that perspective, but this gets back to my point that Orban's sin isn't running a corrupt patronage network, but in running a corrupt patronage network in the wrong way. The patronage network itself is not the problem- the European Union system wouldn't care if Orban was sending your tax euros to some guy's companies if Orban was singing the right tune, just as the American system doesn't really care when the family members of leading politicians end up as well compensated members of corporate or charity boards, or retired from government directly into media gigs of the Fourth Estate supposedly watching them during time in government.
At the end of the day, the European Union, and the governments of Europe that compose it, are groups of people grouped by political alliances and mutually beneficial arrangements. 'I scratch your back and you scratch mine' is one of the oldest quid pro quos there is, and it only sounds nefarious if you call it quid pro quo as opposed to 'compromise' or 'horse trading' or 'coalition building.' Different words can be used to re-characterize the same pushes and pulls of power.
There's actually an argument I've read before that corruption- at least in these more modest forms of mutual benefit- is a key part of building and maintain broad social groups, which would fall apart into zero-sum infighting without the common largess. This does seem to be a deliberate point of the European Project- a sort of bribing everyone to go along and get along- and is one reason the Polish and Hungary 'rebellions' are so politically disruptive. It's not about the money itself, but the rejection of a social contract that used money to mitigate the issues / autonomy of minor states, even as the European Project focused on the highest priority issue of controlling the risk of conflict between the most power (and richest donors), Germany and France (and, to an extent, UK). The EU, as a project designed to keep peace on the continent, has no higher priority than keeping Germany and France at peace, and certainly not beneficit corruption to keep others happy enough.
Where it falls apart, however, is when people start stigmatizing the natural, or the common, and losing sight of what their euphemisms actually decide. When people talk about Ukraine as a corrupt system, it's not a corrupt system in the sense of 'the cartels have intimidated the government into turning a blind eye,' or 'the police chief is always drunk and just does what the occupying army says.' It's important to understand that there are different types of corruption, the types that are relevant in different ways, and how different they are from your own euphisms and accepted practices before you point them out as the Obvious Reasons This Won't Work.
(Which you didn't, but I'm just rambling.)
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