Hungary needs to replace the forint with the euro – reader’s letter

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The Euro for Hungary

The gate of freedom, Hungary of 1989 misled by the former freedom hero of 1989 Viktor Orbán now in the service of Vladimir Putin is rejecting the Eurozone, even openly mocking the Euro, claiming the Euro to be a failure. If József Antall knew what Viktor Orbán is doing, well… No comment.

69% of Hungarians want to join the Eurozone,

but Viktor Orbán prefers manipulating the Forint and running Hungary as his fief. The opposition sadly is not focused, and hoping to end the Orbán regime, they seem to lack the cohesion to win. The left-wing tax populist Klara Dobrev will certainly not defeat Viktor Orbán with a high tax populist platform and married to Ferenc Gyurcsány, the disgraced former Socialist Prime Minister whose confused economics mixed by confused politics led to the 2nd victory of Viktor Orbán in 2010. Gergely Karácsony, the mayor of Budapest, seems a much more reasonable candidate, with better chances to oust Orbán. Key is to focus on the Eurozone, on Orbán’s Russian pivot and close Putin ties and not roll out a Socialist wish list including massive tax hikes. Hungary’s tax system needs to be adjusted to reduce VAT on the EU level to 20% and

raise Corporate Tax to 15% from the current 9%, but keep the 15% flat tax and avoid the temptation of socialist tax populism driving the Hungarian middle classes back to Orbán.

Keeping taxes low and flat at 15% inside the Eurozone is the way for Hungary to catch up with the Czech Republic and Slovenia in this decade and reach Austrian prosperity levels by 2040 as Austria stays a high tax country after the failed tax reform of Sebastian Kurz and Werner Kogler from October 2021.

So the Eurozone membership should be a key election topic for 2022

Orbán will certainly try another anti-migration campaign, so the EU would be well advised to take the pressure off all such redistribution schemes to avoid giving Orban his topic. Better focus on Rule of Law and clearly the Euro for Hungary. Here it would help if Romania would join the Eurozone in 2024 together with Bulgaria, as this would make many Hungarians with links to or living in Romania reconsider their position, and Orban would have much to explain. It would help if Donald Tusk took the Eurozone for Poland as a flagship topic for his return to Poland. It would help to have this debate in the Czech Republic. And Croatia’s Eurozone membership will have an impact as well. Croatia overtaking Hungary into the Eurozone is certainly a message that won’t be lost on Hungarians. But given the misalliance between Orbán and Vucic,