Beer prices increased drastically in Hungary

Beer prices in Hungary have been increasing unstoppably for the last few months. Compared to January 2022, we have to pay 34 percent more for beer, 444.hu found.

Meanwhile, the price of bread rose by 80 percent compared to last January. However, that rate was the same last October, the news outlet wrote. In the case of pasta, the price rise was 66 percent in just one year.

Shadow government: Orbán lost control

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has lost control over the Hungarian economy, opposition DK’s shadow finance minister said on Friday. Zoltán Bodnár told an online press conference that the latest report of the Central Statistical Office again showed record-high inflation for January. Headline inflation was 25.7 percent, harmonised inflation, adjusted for better comparison with other European Union member states, was 26.2 percent, and inflation calculated with a basket of goods and services used by pensioners was 27.4 percent, he added.

Nowhere else in Europe is inflation as high as in Hungary and the reason behind it is that “actually, it is inflation caused by Orbán”, he said. Core inflation was 25.4 percent, over five times more than the EU average.

The basic condition for stopping inflation is the government’s departure, he said. After that, the forint needs to be strengthened and “EU funds suspended because of Viktor Orbán must be brought back”. Global trust in the Hungarian economy and the forint must be recovered and a target date must be set for joining the euro, he added.

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Ruling Fidesz in response said that the record-high inflation had proven that sanctions by Brussels caused “incredible damage”, noting soaring energy and fuel prices. “The ones talking about inflation are the same dollar left which has jumped without thinking to support every sanction imposed by Brussels in exchange for the money of foreign powers,” the party said in a statement.

It said the government was working on measures to bring inflation down into the single digits and would protect Hungarians with utility bill cuts, price caps, a pension increase and the payment of a 13th month pension.

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Source: MTI, 444.hu