PM Orbán hold talks German Chancellor Scholtz in Berlin

Since 2010, Hungary has emerged stronger from every crisis it has experienced, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told an economic forum in Berlin on Monday, citing the global economic crisis of 2008, the migration crisis and the coronavirus pandemic.

The prime minister met German Chancellor Olaf Scholz before the forum focusing on Hungarian-German economic relations. He said he had held “fruitful talks” with Scholz, adding that “every difficult and complicated issue” had been discussed during the two-hour meeting, and that “everyone can be satisfied” with its outcome.

Orbán noted that he visited the chancellor and representatives of the German business community every two years.

Orbán said there were political reasons for why Hungary had emerged stronger from every crisis it had experienced since 2010

He said the global economic crisis in Europe had been about whether the crisis had been a structural or a cyclical one. Most European countries saw it as a cyclical crisis, he said, adding that “I never accepted this interpretation.”

The prime minister said he had considered the crisis to be structural in nature and one which had signalled that Europe would continually lose ground to Asia, including in terms of GDP, markets and the technological competition unless it changed course.

He said the answer to such a crisis was a deep structural reform, adding that his government had reformed the Hungarian economy accordingly after 2010.

The Hungarian model is conservative when it comes to social policy and harkens back to the era of former German chancellor Helmut Kohl, he said. The Hungarian government envisages a labour-based society at the centre of which is the family, he said. Hungary spends the most relative to GDP on supporting families, he said, adding that the government financed families through work. Whereas in 2010 the employment rate in Hungary barely reached 50 percent, it is now around 75 percent, Orbán added.

The government also builds on national pride and wants it to be based increasingly on performance, he said.

“There’s no multiculturalism in Hungary,”

Orbán said.

He said a low tax rate was a key element of the economic foundation of the Hungarian model. Hungary is the only country in the world with a flat personal income tax rate, there is no inheritance tax and the corporate tax rate is 9 percent, he said. Orbán said that when it came to equality, it was education and jobs where people needed to be given equal chances. “But when it comes to the output, or performance, we tend to favour differences,” he added.

Meanwhile, Orbán also said that if Hungary did not protect its borders, the European Union’s single market could collapse. As Hungary is an open country, border defence should be an integral part of its economic policy, he said.