Socialists demand European standard of living for families

Budapest, July 24 (MTI) – The government should make sure Hungarian families have a European standard of living instead of “making preparations to leave the European Union”, the opposition Socialists said on Sunday.

Socialist lawmaker Ildikó Bangó Borbély told a press conference that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, in his recent keynote speech at the Tusnád summer university, had talked about the decaying west while failing to acknowledge that half a million young Hungarians had chosen the western world to live and work instead of their homeland over the past 6 years of Fidesz rule.

Bangó Borbély insisted that 42 percent of children below the age of seven lived in poverty.

She said people forced to take up public works could only hope to earn 50,000 forints (EUR 159) a month, which she likened to slave labour.

The government only sees benefits of the EU insofar as membership provides “an opportunity to loot as much as possible”.

The Socialist politician urged voters to stay away from the government’s upcoming quota referendum to indicate that “they want to stay in Europe and live a European life”.

Source: MTI