Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced a new economic programme at a meeting of Fidesz’s parliamentary group focusing on affordable housing, a one million forint income, subsidised loans for workers and capital injections for SMEs, the daily Magyar Nemzet said on Sunday.
Orbán’s speech, held at a closed meeting at the start of the parliamentary session in Esztergom, in northern Hungary, focused on economic policy and the new economic programme, the paper said. The meeting had been postponed from an earlier date due to the floods, the paper said.
Economic neutrality will bring a turnaround from 2025, and the goverment is working to achieve economic growth exceeding the European Union average, he said.
Orbán said the pandemic and the war in Ukraine had brought changes in the world, and the East was on the rise, while the West was declining. Brussels and the western world had responded by announcing an “economic cold war”, he said. That is harmful for Hungary, and the country is striving to stay out of the cold war, he added.
Orbán said the way to success was economic neutrality. Hungary needed an economic growth beyond the EU average, and that was only possible by maintaining neutrality, he said. That way, the government will be able to raise growth to between 3 and 6 percent, and so will steer Hungary towards stronger growth as soon as 2025, he said.
The new economic policy will require an agreement between economic players, the Chamber of Commerce, interest groups and employee’s organisations, because “the government does not want to decide above their heads”, he said.
The government is also aiming to achieve a new, multi-year agreement between employers and employees on growth-linked wage hikes, he said. Such an agreement would prepare a reliable path to achieve the 1,000 euro minimum wage and the 1,000,000 forint average wage, he said.
Orbán talks about zero-interest loans
Meanwhile, the government would also like to “double the size of export-ready SMEs”, which would involve capital injections and a new action plan, to be called the Demján Sándor plan, Orbán said.
Regarding a loan programme for workers, Orbán said skilled workforce had a crucial role in the economy, besides degree holders, and so young workers would receive zero-interest loans from 2025, similarly to student loans, he said.
War-related inflation and the energy crisis have raised real estate prices in Hungary and Europe, he said. In order to make housing affordable in Hungary, “because Hungarians believe primarily in owning their apartments and houses”, the government must double the volume of housing construction and push mortgage interests below 5 percent, he said.
Assessing the political situation, Orbán said Wednesday’s European parliamentary debate had shown that “nothing has changed in Brussels”. “You can only be the good guy there if you support the continuation of war uncritically, accept Brussels’s migration policy and open the doors to LGBTQ propaganda.”
Europe had not given up the aim to “force migrants on Hungary and turn it into an uncritical supporter of war”, he said. At the same time, “they know they will never achieve that with the national government, and now they are looking for new vassals besides their old ones, then come rolling dollars and euros, they will lift their intended on their shoulder and promise him impunity,” he said.
“Promises of impunity from Brussels always come with a hefty price tag, and Brusselites like to make Hungarians pay that price,” Orbán said.
Besides the support of migration and war, Brussels also expects Hungary to scrap utility price caps and the 13th month pension, to improve the position of multinational corporations as against Hungarian companies, to raise the PIT and to introduce a property tax, Orbán said.
“I am ready to fight, we shall win,” he concluded.
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