Hungarian government member attacks the EU
The EU is requesting financial contributions from member states even as it is withholding funding Hungary is entitled to, a state secretary of the cabinet office said on Tuesday.
Responding to an European Commission proposal for member states to contribute to a EUR 50 billion support for the reconstruction and modernisation of Ukraine over the next four years, Csaba Dömötör said that the EU had called for contributions becuse earlier support for war-torn Ukraine had left its budget “tens of billions of euros in the red”. “Most of the contributions, some 50 billion, would again be poured into Ukraine, but the rest would go towards covering skyrocketing interest rates and the inflation-djusted salaries of Brussels bureaucrats,” Dömötör said in a video on Facebook.
Modifying the EU’s budget requires a unanimous decision of member states, Dömötör said. He said he expected “an interesting and strange debate” on the issue, since member states were now asked for extra contributions while Hungary had not yet received the EU funding it was entitled to.
Source: MTI
Interestingly, the Hungarian Parliament last year voted to give Mr. Orbán an almost 100% pay rise. Also, the new law gives our Prime Minister the right to decide the salaries of the political director of the Prime Minister, the State Secretary, the Government Commissioner, and other high-ranking government members. I’d be curious to see the level of those wage hikes. Lastly, this law cuts the financial subsidies of the opposition parties by half. Money obviously better spent, elsewhere.
Regarding adjusting anything for inflation … The Euro area (including “Brussels”) comes out at seven (7) percent, Hungary as the ultimate EU outperformer at twenty four point five (24,5) percent:
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/16668127/2-17052023-AP-EN.pdf
Thank you Norbert for the link. 10 points higher than Czechia and Poland? It can’t only be a problem with the forint exchange rate. Orban should lower the VAT
@Renault – our VAT (paid by the end consumer) funds our low corporate tax rate – so unfortunately, lowering the VAT rate is not possible without increasing taxation on corporations: https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-hungary.pdf
Besides – we need to fund our borrowing, and you’ll never guess who leads the non-Euro denominated 10 year bond yield statistics (never mind Euro denominated):
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/financial_markets_and_interest_rates/long_term_interest_rates/html/index.en.html
At least we’re below 10 percent, again!