Hungarian government calls for answers on EU spending

Since amending the European Union budget requires unanimity, there is no realistic chance of approving the planned amendment, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office told a regular press briefing on Thursday.

The European Commission has asked member states to contribute another EUR 98.5 billion, or fifteen times the sum of all Hungarian annual personal income tax payments, roughly the sum of the entire Hungarian state budget, Gergely Gulyás said. Obviously, significantly less is expected of Hungary, but this is still an enormous amount, large enough that even Austria or Germany do not want to shoulder it in this form, he said.

Several issues still need to be clarified, Gulyás said, such as what the EC has spent the money on, since there should be more money, not less, as Poland and Hungary have yet to receive “a single cent”. Also, the member states that have already received some of the recovery funds complain that the payments are slow, he added.

Based on the EC’s request, EUR 50 billion would go to Ukraine, and they also want to finance interest expenditures and spend some of the money on migrants, but not on border protection, Gulyás said. In fact, one and a half billion euros would go towards raising the salaries of the “Brussels bureaucracy”, he added. Hungary cannot agree to this, and since the amendment requires unanimity, such an amendment has no realistic chance of passing, Gulyás said.

Gulyás rules out family benefit cuts, scrapping utility price caps

Cuts to family benefits and the idea of scrapping the caps on household utility prices are “out of the question”, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office said on Thursday.

Commenting on the European Semester recommendations to Hungary, Gergely Gulyás told a regular press briefing that the European Commission had recommended that Hungary scrap price caps on energy and review its spending on family support, education and health care.

Hungary will examine all those areas, but Brussels cannot mandate any cuts to them, he said.

“EU proposal ‘forcing migrants on Hungary”

The EU’s proposed mandatory resettlement quotas for migrants would “force migrants on Europe and Hungary” and “invite” migrants to come to Europe, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office told a regular press briefing on Thursday.

Central European governments “as yet free from the consequences of migration” should do all they can to thwart “this crazy and senseless legislation”, Gergely Gulyás said. Hungary’s prime minister therefore blocked a joint declaration on the matter at the last European Council meeting, he added.

Besides the mandatory resettlement and transfer of asylum seekers, the legislation would also mean that Hungary would have to assess at least 10,000 asylum requests a year, he added. For that process, asylum seekers would have to be accepted into the country and housed in refugee camps. That idea would be “tantamount to dismantling the fence” on Hungary’s border, Gulyás said.

Source: MTI