Hungarian opposition parties on Saturday slammed Prime Minister Viktor Orbán over his speech at the 31st summer university in Baile Tusnad (Tusnádfürdő), in central Romania.
In a statement, the leftist Democratic Coalition said: “It is not advice that an ill person needs, but medicine.” Liberal Momentum accused Orbán of “pitting people against each other” when he “should be concerned with the livelihoods of the Hungarian people and the social crisis plagueing our country”. Last week it “became clear to everyone that the prime minister has long built his policies on lies while staying silent on the true economic situation in Hungary”, Momentum said in a statement. “His ‘Tusványos’ speech today was no different as he incited against our allies but made no mention of those affected by the changes to the small business tax rules or rising utility costs,” the party added.
The Socialists said that after 12 years in power, “Orbán’s only vision for the country” was that “we are waiting for 2030 not because Hungary will catch up with the West by then, but because the West will fall apart in exactly eight years”. In a statement, they said that in his speech, Orbán had made sure “not to admit that his government’s flawed policies are the reason why Hungary is severely affected by the economic and cost-of-living crisis”. The Orbán government has made Hungary “the second most corrupt country in the European Union”, the party said, adding that inflation was “brutal” and that the government was to blame for the delay in the payouts of EU funds to Hungary.
Péter Ungár, group leader of green LMP, said he was “surprised to hear” the prime minister criticise multinational companies over their excessive profits resulting from the war. “This begs the question: If he has a problem with this, then why is he defending with all his might the international corporations that pay no taxes in Hungary?” Ungár said on Facebook.
He said LMP welcomed Orbán’s stance that Hungary must end its dependence on gas.
“Better late than never, but if the prime minister hadn’t been doing the exact opposite of this over the last ten years, we’d be in less trouble right now,” he added.
Opposition LMP on Tuesday slammed the draft budget, saying it favoured multinational corporations and failed to address the “towering problems” of the energy and food crises, inflation and the climate crisis.
Deputy group leader Antal Csárdi told a press conference ahead of the vote on the budget in parliament that low earners and middle-class citizens will suffer most under the 2023 budget.
Noting over 100 amendment proposals of LMP had been “swept unread off the table”, Csárdi said LMP wanted to raise the taxes of “tax-avoiding multinationals”. The draft budget calculates with 7,100 billion forints (EUR 17.7bn) in VAT revenues and 4,000 billion in PIT revenues, but only 800 billion in corporate taxes, he said.
The ruling parties have also failed to support LMP’s proposal of an inflation-linked raise for public employees and a raise for teachers, he said. He also called for “real utility price cuts” by insulation programmes for residential buildings and tax cuts for sustainable energy resources.
Opposition LMP has proposed a large-scale insulation upgrade of buildings with a view to reducing energy consumption.
Máté Kanász-Nagy, the co-leader of the green party, told a press conference on Monday that the insulation of some 100,000 homes per year could help reduce the energy consumption of households, which he said “would mean a real utility cost cut measure”. The programme could also help create several tens of thousands of “crisis resistant jobs” in the SME sector, he said.
If implemented, LMP’s insulation programme could serve climate protection goals as well, Kanász-Nagy said, arguing that the upgrade of around 600,000 homes in the next five years could prevent the emission of 400,000 tonnes of carbon-dioxide.
“It means that the country could spare the use of one-fifth, or 2 billion cubic metres, of its current natural gas needs,” he said.
Hungary’s opposition parties on Friday criticised Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s recent comments on jobs and the changes to household utility price caps and the small business tax, saying he had “admitted” that the government was “incapable of protecting families”.
In a Facebook post reacting to Orbán’s interview to public broadcaster Kossuth Rádió, Socialist Party co-leader Bertalan Tóth said the prime minister had “irresponsibly dished out handouts” before the election in the interest of keeping his power “and lied that this was sustainable”. “They lied about stability, utility prices, the price of Russian energy, the state of emergency and just about everything,” Toth insisted.
He said the minimum wage should be exempt from personal income tax, taxes on low incomes should be cut, while low pensions and the wages of public service workers, teachers and health-care workers should be increased. Tóth also criticised Orbán, who he said “has been living off taxpayer money for 32 years”, over his reasoning for the need to change the rules around the itemised tax for small businesses (kata).
Opposition Momentum said the prime minister’s radio interview was “a clear admission that the government can’t and doesn’t want to protect Hungarian families from the cost of living crisis”. Momentum said Hungary’s economic stability could only be guaranteed by an agreement with the European Union and a commitment to carrying out structural reforms so that the country could have access to the funds that could be spent on hospitals, schools and jobs.
LMP co-leader Máté Kanász-Nagy urged an end to Hungary’s dependence on hydrocarbons. He called on the government to lift all bans and restrictions on the installation of renewable energy systems, introduce a building insulation scheme based on social considerations and
The leftist Democratic Coalition said Orbán had admitted that the government “won’t protect jobs”. Balázs Barkóczi, the party’s spokesman, told a press conference that “the prime minister knows what he’s talking about, given that he’s just taken away the livelihood of 450,000 taxpayers”. “First they let Orbán’s inflation loose on the country, then imposed a brutal package of austerity measures with the windfall taxes, the decision to scrap the kata tax and by raising utility costs,” Barkóczi said.
Opposition LMP has put together a package of green proposals aimed at tackling the energy and climate crisis, Máté Kanász-Nagy, the party’s co-leader, said on Thursday.
The package includes lifting all bans and restrictions on the installation of renewable energy systems, he told a press conference. Kanász-Nagy noted the ban on the construction of wind farms in Hungary “even though there’s a need for wind power”.
LMP is also calling for the launch of a building insulation scheme based on social considerations, geared towards those with below-average income, he said.
The package also includes a subsidy scheme for the installation of renewable energy systems which would help cut utility costs, Kanász-Nagy said.
He also urged the immediate introduction of a “climate pass” for public transport.
Meanwhile, Kanász-Nagy called on the government to scrap the upgrade of the Paks nuclear plant, saying that “every forint spent on the project is money out the window”.
He said Wednesday’s announcement that caps on household electricity and gas prices will be limited to average consumption levels was an “admission on the government’s part that they completely wasted the last 12 years”.
“The energy crisis wasn’t a question of if, but when,” he said, adding that a transition to renewable energy sources could have prevented its harmful effects.
Lawmakers of the opposition Socialist, Jobbik and LMP parties on Wednesday appealed to the Hungarian president asking Katalin Novák not to sign the new law on the Itemised Tax for Small Businesses (KATA).
Parliament adopted on Tuesday the amendments to kata regulations which raises the income threshold for taxpayers to 18 million forints (EUR 44,000) per year from 12 million, and restricts the circle of eligible entrepreneurs. According to the amended legislation, kata taxpayers will continue to pay a flat monthly rate of 50,000 forints instead of corporate or payroll tax. Income over the 18 million threshold would be taxed at a rate of 40 percent.
Kata will be available for sole proprietors from September 1. To eliminate hidden employment, only entrepreneurs providing services and goods for private customers will be eligible. The sole exception are taxi drivers, who could remain within kata while providing services for companies too.
In an open letter to Novák, Socialist co-leader Bertalan Tóth said the law passed hastily “does not serve predictability”, insisting that “the livelihood and security of 450,000 people cannot be turned upside down just in 24 hours in the middle of the year”. He said it was crucial to protect families “in an unstable situation triggered by the war and with a record high inflation putting extra burdens on them”. He said Novák is “facing to take a decision that will show whether the president represents the unity of the nation and the interests of families or serves a political party”.
Lawmakers of LMP said the new kata law means a significant tax increase in the form of an austerity measure. “It will put out of business small entrepreneurs like electricians, physiotherapists or couriers while not putting any extra tax burden on large companies such as Mol, Audi, Richter or BMW,” LMP’s spokesman József Gál told a press conference. He called for increasing the corporate tax rate and introducing a double-digit personal income tax and an asset tax on large companies.
Anita Kőrösi Potocska, Jobbik’s deputy leader, told a press conference that small entrepreneurs unable to pay their taxes under the new kata regulations would increase their prices making their customers to pay in the end for their increasing public burden. Lawmaker Dániel Z Kárpát called on the government “to include in sharing the public burden multinational companies it constantly indulges”.
Opposition LMP co-leader Máté Kanász-Nagy on Monday urged a wage hike in the public sector, saying that the situation was “intolerable”.
For example, he said that the number of trainee police had been reduced by half since 2017 and many officers were quitting their jobs over low pay. A young policeman earns less than a monthly net 200,000 forints (EUR 499) including benefits and overtime pay, he said.
Despite the government’s claims of recent wage increases, real wages in the sector have shrunk by nearly 10 percent, Kanász-Nagy said, adding that his party would “fight for a wage hike till the last minute in the budget debate”.
Opposition LMP has called for the introduction of a nationwide monthly transit pass promoting climate protection, based on a German example, the head of the party’s parliamentary group said on Sunday.
Peter Ungar said the pass should be offered at a price of 5,000 forints to encourage the use of public transport and help resolve the energy crisis. LMP will submit its proposal to parliament next week, he added.
The current energy crisis results not only from the Russia-Ukraine conflict but basically it is caused by a world order based on fossil energy use coming to a close, he said. Humanity will face a series of energy crises before that happens, he added.
Opposition LMP on Thursday said Hungary could no longer afford to hold off on introducing a congestion charge in Budapest, arguing that deteriorating air quality in the city was costing “thousands of lives” a year.
“Those living in downtown Budapest are paying for the comfort of motorists with their lungs,” lawmaker Antal Csárdi told an online press conference. Budapest belongs to its residents and the city must not be taken over by cars, he said.
The government and the city council should have introduced a congestion charge in the city years ago, Csárdi said.
The charge will help reduce traffic if it is affordable and if a viable alternative is offered to motorists at the same time, he said. Csárdi said the 5,000 forint (EUR 12.6) “climate pass” proposed by his party would give people access to all means of public transport in the city.
Roughly one-third of Hungary’s opposition voters are uncommitted to any party, the daily Magyar Nemzet said on Tuesday, citing a fresh poll by the Nézőpont Institute.
According to the pollster, an election held this Sunday would be won by the ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance with 55 percent of the vote, with just three opposition parties clearing the threshold for seats in parliament.
The leftist Democratic Coalition and radical Mi Hazánk (Our Homeland) would each get 6 percent of the vote, while the satirical Two-Tailed Dog Party would have 5 percent.
Conservative Jobbik and the liberal Momentum Movement would both fail to secure parliamentary seats, ending up with just 4 percent each. The Socialist Party, green LMP and the small liberal Párbeszéd party would receive 1 percent each, according to the poll.
Nézőpont said that though 12 percent of voters are critical of the prime minister, they would not vote for any of the opposition parties, either. The pollster added that nearly one-third of opposition voters had become disenchanted with the left-wing parties.
Magyar Nemzet noted that the ruling parties had also dominated the municipal by-elections held last Sunday. It said Nézőpont’s findings confirmed that whereas support for the ruling parties remains stable, the opposition is not only finding it hard to attract new voters but also to retain existing ones.
As we wrote yesterday, four Budapest constituencies held by-elections on Sunday, with three going to candidates of the ruling party and one to the opposition, details HERE.
Gergely Karácsony, the mayor of Budapest, has got his analysis of the opposition’s election woes wrong, according to Péter Ungár, parliamentary leader of the opposition LMP party.
As we wrote earlier today, four Budapest constituencies held by-elections on Sunday, with three going to candidates of the ruling party and one to the opposition, the National Election Office (NVI) said late on Sunday, details HERE.
Commenting on a “disappointing” outcome in Sunday’s by-election, Ungar said on Facebook that whereas Karacsony got it right that voters had punished the opposition for its performance since the April 3 general election, he said the pre-election record of the opposition was hardly brilliant either.
“Given Karácsony’s irredeemable merits in devising the pre-April strategy, he should have allowed his ‘analyst self’ more time to surface before issuing new directives,” Ungár said.
Ungár also disputed Karácsony’s view that voters wanted “much more opposition party unity”, insisting that the opposition had enjoyed one million more votes when there was rivalry between them.
László Lóránt Keresztes, the head of parliament’s sustainable development committee, has turned to President Katalin Novák in an open letter, asking her to raise her voice in protection of the River Sajo and for eliminating the ongoing pollution there.
The Sajó enters Hungary in the northeast from Slovakia, where contaminated water from a closed mine has been flowing into the river for months.
Keresztes, who is also the group leader of the opposition LMP, said the pollution had already exterminated wildlife in a long stretch of the river, and the contamination had reached Hungary where the amount of harmful substances has risen above the threshold values, he said.
He is now turning to the President “seeing the inaction of the Slovak government and the passivity of the Hungarian ruling parties and government”. Keresztes said
Slovak officials had “admitted” that they had failed to find a final solution to the problem,
he said. Hungary must do everything in its power to stop the pollution, by offering professional help to Slovakia if necessary, he said.
Opposition LMP urged the immediate rollout of a 5,000 forint (EUR 12.5) “climate pass” for all public transport in Hungary at a press conference on Saturday.
At the press conference streamed on Facebook, LMP spokesman József Gál said the public transport pass, modeled on the one in Germany, could be introduced for a trial period of three months from July.
The 100-billion-forint cost of the trial period
could be covered by raising the corporate tax rate for polluting multinationals to 25 percent, he added.
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He said “extraordinary measures” are needed to address climate change and the energy crisis, adding that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced at the same time dependence on Russian energy is cut.
Opposition LMP, as a member of the European Greens party group, called on Hungarian lawmakers in the European Parliament not to support “labelling nuclear energy and natural gas green”.
Co-leader of the party Erzsébet Schmuck told an online press conference on Friday that she had written a letter jointly with László Lóránt Keresztes, head of parliament’s sustainable development committee, asking all Hungarian MEPs not to give their support.
She said that a resolution would go before the EP in July and the European Commission had submitted an amendment proposal to this resolution “under pressure” from the nuclear energy and natural gas lobby.
The amendment proposal would label a significant part of natural gas and nuclear energy projects as sustainable,
The resolution will serve as a guideline to investors concerning what sustainable projects to invest in, she said. Approving the amendment proposal would be a great drawback to Europe’s green transition plan, going against the target to achieve climate neutrality by the middle of the century, she added.
Schmuck said that these sources of energy severely pollute the environment.
The EP’s economic and environmental protection committees have not supported the amendment, “but we have not yet won the battle and the unscrupulous pushiness of the nuclear and fossil energy lobbies must be reined in now,” she said.
The head of parliament’s sustainable development committee said on Thursday he expected Slovak authorities to state when they will order a stop to pollution of the River Sajó which flows from the neighbouring country into Hungary.
At an online press conference, László Lóránt Keresztes, a lawmaker for green opposition LMP, summarised his talks on the matter with the head of Slovak parliament’s environmental and agricultural committee earlier in the day.
“Disputes over the scope of authority in the Slovak government are still hampering efforts to stop pollution on the Sajó, and it is still hard to know when pollution that has been going on for months will stop,” he said.
Keresztes said the pollution “has caused shocking destruction, wiping out living organisms along a 10-15km section of the river” in Slovakia, while arsenic content on the Hungarian section, he added, was above safe limits.
He said that although the amount of toxic water released from an abandoned mine into the river had dropped by 70-80 percent over the past two weeks, water flowing into the Sajó on the Slovak side still had a high content of hazardous materials. “Ecological balance can only be retained by fully eliminating the pollution,” the LMP politician said.
Keresztes criticised the Slovak government for failing over many months to take any measures to prevent the disaster. He also criticised the Hungarian government for failing to take sufficient diplomatic action.
The opposition LMP has proposed that the government should ensure a pay rise twice each year to employees of the public sector to compensate for inflation.
A party spokesman told a press conference broadcast on Facebook on Sunday that the move could prevent those salaries from losing their value. The measure could cost between 250-300 billion forints in 2022, József Gál said, adding that the programme could be financed by introducing a new, 25 percent upper bracket for the corporate tax.
Gál noted notoriously low pay in the sector,
which has led to a labour shortage in health care, education, law enforcement and welfare services. He said, for example, that the salary of a young policeman was a mere 207,000 forints (EUR 520).
The co-ruling Christian Democrats (KDNP) said in a statement on Sunday, Teachers’ Day, that teachers “hold Hungary’s future in their hands” and “we are grateful to all those who educate our youth in kindergartens and schools.”
Families are in the focus of KDNP’s policy, the statement signed by group leader István Simicskó said, adding that “the future of our homeland and our nation rests on the young generation raised by those families”. Teachers have a huge responsibility in “what kind of people our children and grandchildren will grow up to be,” it said.
Parties of the opposition also thanked teachers for their work, but protested low pay in schools and recent restrictions concerning the rights of teachers to strike.
The Democratic Coalition (DK) said in a statement:
“We should not forget how much we owe teachers whose efforts [Prime Minister Viktor] Orbán’s inhumane system
has rewarded with a successive curbing of their rights, humiliatingly low salaries, an incredible workload and degrading Teachers’ Day benefits in the past 12 years”.
The Párbeszéd party demanded an instant pay rise and benefits for teachers. In a statement, the party noted the high rate of teachers quitting their jobs, and insisted it was “the last chance to reverse the drastic deterioration of the quality of public education”. Párbeszéd will appeal to the Constitutional Court against recent legislation seen as “shockingly” curbing teachers’ right to strike, the statement said.
Green LMP said a pay rise to compensate teachers for inflation could no longer be delayed, and insisted that the salaries of young teachers was higher in every other European Union member state except Bulgaria. In their statement, LMP co-leaders Erzsébet Schmuck and Máté Kanász-Nagy demanded a pay hike immediately, as well as the restoration of teachers’ right to strike.
The Socialist Party said it would also appeal to the top court concerning the strike law, and demanded that teachers should get a “radical” increase of at least 50 percent of their salaries, and
each teacher should receive a voucher worth 100,000 forints (EUR 255) as a Teachers’ Day bonus.
Conservative Jobbik MP Koloman Brenner said on Facebook his party was working to ensure that teachers are properly rewarded for their work “morally and financially”.
To be Hungarian is to make a choice, the President of the Republic said at an event on National Day of Cohesion, marking the anniversary of the Treaty of Trianon, on Saturday.
Addressing the event held by the Rákóczi Association in Sátoraljaújhely, in central Hungary, Katalin Novák said: “We are not mourning our losses but celebrating our riches; and this is the case even if not everyone clearly understands that
there is no difference between Hungarians living here and abroad.
To be Hungarian is to be Hungarian, period.”
“Just as in marriage you must say ‘yes’ from one day to the next, so you must say ‘yes’ every day to being Hungarian,” the president said. Meanwhile, at a separate event celebrating National Day of Cohesion, Gergely Karácsony, the mayor of Budapest, said the lesson to be learned from the Treaty of Trianon was that
“we are a single Hungarian [nation]”.
June 3 – train departing to Csíksomlyó. Photo: MTI/Zoltán Balogh
Karácsony said in a statement that Trianon was “the Hungarian nation’s common tragedy”, but politicians often misappropriated it, adding that the “government identifies itself with the nation and often weaponises it for the purpose of exclusion”, while the left wing refused to “step out of the shadows” and recognise its importance.
“When it comes to Trianon there aren’t any sides; there are no ideologies, only common grief,”
he said.
Trianon commemoration in Zalaegerszeg. Photo: MTI/György Varga
The Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP) said in a statement in connection with the national day that Hungary must remain a sovereign, independent, and European nation state “ready to champion its truth and represent the interests of all Hungarians”.
“Even when throughout our history
we have often been a plaything of the great powers,
we have insisted on upholding our independence, language, faith, culture, and traditions; this means our nation has survived even amidst the hardest times,” the statement said.
The opposition LMP party said in a statement that Hungarians must stand side by side with Hungarians living in the Carpathian Basin and join together in protecting its natural resources.
Unconventional History lesson at the Trianon memorial in Budapest for Hungarian kids from Hungary and Slovakia. Photo: MTI/Zoltán Balogh
The green party’s co-leaders Erzsébet Schmuck and Máté Kanász-Nagy said Hungary commemorated “the unjust and painful Trianon dictat” on behalf of all Hungarians. “We must take responsibility for everyone who holds the nation in their hearts … the Carpathian Basin is our common heritage, and our common duty is to preserve our natural riches,” the statement said.
László Kövér, the Speaker of Parliament, said in an interview to commercial broadcaster Hir TV that Hungary had survived the last hundred years, a testament to the nation’s “strength and indestructibility”. “And if over the past thousand years we’ve managed to endure in this corner of the world, there is hope that we will endure in the next thousand,” he said.
Hungary, he added, was more organised and cohesive than 20-30 years ago. “This depends essentially on the motherland,” Kövér said.
“While the motherland is strong economically and politically … Hungarian communities abroad can also be strong.”
Csíksomlyó. Photo: MTI/Nándor Veres
Meanwhile, Kövér underlined Hungary’s standpoint that the questioning of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity was “intolerable”. He said Hungary’s interest was in a strong and democratic Ukrainian state governed by the rule of law, capable of guaranteeing the security and prosperity of its citizens, including its national minorities.
Zsolt Németh, head of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, addressing a commemoration in Sfantu Gheorghe (Sepsiszentgyörgy), in central Romania, said
Hungary and its neighbours should support each other to protect “security and freedom” in the region.
“This is the basis for the alliance of Hungary and Romania, which is also aimed at ensuring security in Szekler Land,” he said, adding that the two countries’ NATO and EU membership were a key component of that alliance.
Németh also called for efforts to strengthen the economies of both countries, and he noted the contribution of ethnic Hungarians to “the richness of Szekler Land, the work of Szeklers, and the creativity of their businesses”. Regarding unresolved issues between Hungary and Romania, Németh said “Szeklers rightfully expect Romanian-Hungarian relations to contribute to a resolution in terms of human rights, as well as legal issues in the domain of language and culture”. “The Hungarian government considers it Hungary and Romania’s shared interest that citizens of both countries feel as comfortable as possible in their homeland,” he said.
Hungary’s parliament declared June 4 Day of National Cohesion in 2010. It marks the day the peace treaty was signed in the Grand Trianon chateau of Versailles in 1920. Under the treaty,
two-thirds of Hungary’s territory was ceded to neighboring countries.
