Orbán’s announcement: govt to protect utility cuts, cut excess profits
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced setting up a “utility cut protection fund” and a defence fund on Wednesday.
In a video published on Facebook, the prime minister said
banks, insurance companies, large distribution chains, energy and trading companies, telecommunications companies and airlines would be obliged to pay “a large part of their excess profits” into those two funds.
The new funds will finance the government’s public utility cut programme and development projects for the military, Orbán said. He added that the new measures would apply for 2022 and 2023.
Orbán noted the government’s commitment to protecting “families, pensioners, jobs and utility cuts even in a protracted war situation”.
He added that the protracted war and the EU’s sanction policy, which “shows no improvement”, would together result in “drastic price hikes”.
While the utility cut programme provides protection to families, that protection is “ever harder and more expensive to maintain” in light of increasing energy prices, he said.
Orbán said the military should be reinforced with no delay.
Meanwhile, he said, banks and international companies earned excessive profits through higher interest rates and prices.
“We are asking and expecting those that make excess profits in this situation of war to help people and contribute to the country’s defence spending,”
he said. He added that the government would publish detailed figures on Thursday.
Source: MTI