At a public forum on Friday in the Hungarian town of Szolnok, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Public Administration and Justice Tibor Navracsics said that the Government hopes that by the beginning of 2014 the country will be stronger, cleaner and tidier. In this way it will be better able to withstand the ‘global storms’ and address challenges more competitively when economic growth resumes in Europe.

Deputy Prime Minister Navracsics said that the last two years of changes had not been without problems and ‘untidiness’. Just as with renovating a home this was unavoidable, ‘but if we carry out the work with good craftsmen, then our home will be far better than it was.’

The Deputy Prime Minister said that in 2006 Hungary’s budget deficit was at a world record level, and in 2007 it was the highest among EU Member States. ‘Today, however, we have reached the position of being one of the few Member States with a budget deficit lower than 3 per cent,’ he said. He also said that, in contrast to the measures of the governments of Ferenc Gyurcsány and Gordon Bajnai – which continuously placed the financial burden on the public – the Orbán cabinet has acted according to the principle of burden sharing. Therefore it has also asked those who under previous governments were excused such burdens to now make their contribution.

Thus the Government has raised the amount of tax on banks (a measure also introduced by other EU Member States), which has stabilised Hungary’s financial situation. Deputy Prime Minister Navracsics said that ‘The Government has done what it said what it would in its 2010 programme. It promised change, and indeed many changes have taken place since 2010; as with a renovating home, these have been accompanied by a certain amount of temporary untidiness –  but the work we are doing is strengthening the country’.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs)