Improving the competitiveness of continental Europe, which has fallen behind the United States and China, will be a “top priority” of Hungary’s upcoming EU presidency in the second half of the year, Finance Minister Mihály Varga told journalists after attending a meeting of the council of European Union finance ministers (ECOFIN) in Luxembourg on Friday.
Under the Hungarian presidency, proposals will be drafted on more efficient use of resources while addressing ways the EU could be made more competitive with advantages in the area of taxation, Varga said.
Hungary backs the strengthening of cooperation between EU member states in the area of taxation, while it rejects efforts to form economic blocs, he added.
Varga said the Hungarian presidency would be tasked with seeing the VAT in the digital age package approved by member states. He added that the measures aimed to boost business competitiveness, reduce the cost of red tape and promote digitalisation.
Photo: FB/Mihály Varga
He said Hungary rejected a proposal to levy punitive tariffs on Chinese EV makers, calling the step “serious protectionism” that would not help the European automotive industry. The automotive industry needs better industry policy and a reduction of regulatory and administrative burdens, he added.
Assessing the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), Varga said payouts had been “slow and bureaucratic”, adding that the funding had been used for “political blackmail”.
He said the EC’s proposal to earmark around 2.1 billion euros for expenditures related to migration in the 2025 EU budget was “too modest” an amount to have any meaningful impact on illegal migration.
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1 Comment
PM. Orban will have a difficult time increasing EU competitiveness. There are great inventors in Hungary, US, UK but cannot be said that great inventions are coming out of the rest of EU. Unfortunately, intellectual properties are stolen by Chinese from the US. That makes China a great EU competitor. Good luck PM. Orban.