Record amount of money for the Hungarian public media: PM Orbán already preparing for the elections?
Change language:
It is already a cliché in Hungary that the country’s public media is pro-government, and politicians from the opposition are very rare guests on any of the programs. Therefore, alternative media says that giving a record amount of money for it in the 2021 budget can mean that PM Viktor Orbán and his government have already started to prepare for the 2022 general election.
According to Nepszava, the draft budget of 2021 would increase the budget of the Hungarian public media with 20 billion HUF, and it would allocate 11 billion HUF for the so-called national consultations. Interestingly, these two measures were not in the original draft of the budget but are modifications already accepted by the government majority of the competent parliament committee. Népszava thinks that the modifications serve no other purpose than to support Fidesz-KDNP’s preparation for the 2022 general elections.
If the committee and the parliament accept the modifications, that would mean that the Hungarian public media could use 97 billion HUF instead of 77 billion in 2021. Furthermore, the public media regularly receives money during each year thanks to government decisions, so the final amount they can use can be even more than 100 billion HUF (EUR 2.8 million).