Orbán promises to increase wages and family subsidies

A draft of a budget for peace-time has been prepared, “we will raise wages and family subsidies”, the prime minister said in a Facebook post on Sunday, after addressing an annual picnic meeting in Kötcse, in southern Hungary, on the previous day.

Orbán’s plan

“We have an action plan. Although it has not been presented or announced yet, we haven’t put it under political work yet, but we usually refer to it as a peace-time budget and it is already in the drawer. This is more or less the case, and if [central bank] Governor [György] Matolcsy doesn’t force us to do so, then we will not have to pull it out ahead of time,” Viktor Orbán said.

The prime minister said that a 3-5 percent economic growth target for 2025 was at the centre of the draft budget. A budget must be drawn up that, in addition to preserving the financial balance – which is necessary because of the credit rating agencies and the entire financial world – is able to produce a 3-5 percent growth, he said.

“This is the basis for everything, and I think we can manage this,” Orbán added.

He said “dynamics” were needed when it came to wages. Employers and employees are in “very dynamic” talks about next year’s wages, Orbán said.

“The government is trying to stay out of this, but apparently unions will agree on a large-scale wage increase with employers, which the government will seal; and obviously they want to involve our money, but this is now beside the point ….but a series of negotiations are taking place at the moment about a significant minimum wage increase for years to come,” Orban said.

The prime minister noted “dynamic” wage increases in some areas, such as health care, adding that the biggest teacher wage increase in the history of Hungary was also taking place, which would continue next year.

He pledged to increase the value of family subsidies, arguing that “high inflation has gobbled up their value”.

“After 2020, when troubles caused by Covid began, we could not increase subsidies at a pace to keep up with the rate of inflation, but this must be compensated now,” he said and added that the tax-credit available to those raising children must be doubled in 2025.

The prime minister said that Márton Nagy, the national economy minister, was making good progress in launching a programme to support small entrepreneurs that was modelled on the one-time Széchenyi Plan.

The core of the scheme Orbán said was that “if you invest one forint, we will match it also with one forint”. “So, a programme aimed at including small and medium size businesses, not big ones, is also in place,” he said, adding that implementing such an economic action plan required “a coordinated economic policy”.

“The more we listen to the governor of the central bank, the more we feel as if we were moving in the opposite direction, but this is only an illusion. We in fact are moving at a proper pace towards a well-coordinated system for managing the country’s economy,” Orbán said.

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