Current economic policies won’t help Hungary bridge EU wage gap, says LMP

Budapest (MTI) – Hungary’s current economic policies will never close the wage gap with the European average, the co-leaders of the green LMP party told a news conference on Saturday.

In an assessment of the past year, Andras Schiffer and Bernadett Szel said a feudal system was emerging in Hungary based on the government’s fostered jobs scheme. Many people joining the workforce are having to try their luck abroad, Schiffer said. “If someone does not want to live their life on an assembly plant then they have the choice of either migrating or taking on work in a fostered job scheme,” he said.

Viktor Orban, the prime minister, is making the country the servant of big German capital and keeping wages artificially low, he added.

He also slammed the government scheme to sell off state farmland.

Schiffer said LMP’s job was to clearly show the possibility that the country can be rejuvenated. Politics, he said, must be taken out of the hands of their oligarchs, he insisted, adding that a new parliament should approve clear anti-corruption rules.

Szel said 2015 had been a year of losses for working people. Half of taxpayers earn on the breadline while more than a third of households live below the breadline, she said.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters