As required by the Hungarian constitution, today Prime Minister Viktor Orbán briefed Parliament on the decisions made at the European Council meeting last week; he also introduced the Job Protection Action Plan.

Prime Minister Orbán stated that short-term provisions have been made to handle the liquidity problems of Italy and Spain, and these justify the restrained confidence of the financial markets. He also welcomed the fact that EU finance ministers unanimously decided to cancel suspension of cohesion funds for Hungary in 2013.

Touching upon the National Consultation, the Hungarian Prime Minister stated that in the 400,000 questionnaires returned so far, the fear most often expressed by Hungarians was of unemployment. To tackle this threat the Fidesz-KDNP Alliance agreed with the Government to launch the Job Protection Action Plan. The Prime Minister listed a ten-point agenda which aims to support the efforts to find work of those under the age of 25 or over the age of 55, the long-term unemployed, unskilled workers and mothers returning from maternity leave. This will be realised through an unprecedented 300-billion-forint tax cut related to social security contributions, which will help Hungarian businesses – primarily micro- and small enterprises – to create more jobs. This extra expenditure will not affect the overall budget or deficit targets.

(Prime Minister’s Office)