Helsinki, 13th May 2013

Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen.

May I just repeat what your prime minister said about the bilateral issues? It is not just good, but we like to cooperate with each other on field of economy, culture and political life as well. So there wasn’t any difficult point to be settled, because the life itself settles all the important bilateral issues, and it is good news to all politicians. Speaking about the European Union, your prime minister just described his view on the future of the European Union, and as far as I was able to follow it, the Hungarian position is very similar to that. So, I identified four points he made, and we share all four.

First is rule-based Union. If you study the origin the crisis we are just in, you can find at the bottom of the reasons that the ruled-based Union has been given up at a certain moment – that is the reason why so many countries are indebted and out of the limit of the budget deficit.

Fair integration – as he said. We shared our view on that point too. Rule of law, as the third pillar and deeper integration as the fourth pillar. At this point, about the deeper integration, may I just have one comment that we agreed, that the Eurozone countries who have common currency should be integrated more – that is a logical consequence of the common currency creation.And Hungary will never be an obstacle for those countries that belong to the Eurozone and would like to have a deeper integration, even if Hungary should agree with that despite the fact that we are not member of the common currency, but we will support that deeper integration. At the same time, I asked your prime minister to understand that we need more flexibility for those countries that are not in the Eurozone. We need more flexibility in terms of economic policy mix, because it is obvious that countries like Sweden who are not members of the Eurozone, Hungary which is not member of the Eurozone, and let’s say Finland – which is member of the Eurozone, couldn’t or shouldn’t use the same economic mix. It is impossible, because situations are so different. In Hungary the average income salary – in net terms – is 500 euros per month, and the pension is 300 hundred. How can we use the same methods as the Finnish or the Swedish? Therefore, some flexibility for those countries that are out of the Eurozone should be provided.

We supported four other points of your prime minister. He suggested digital single market improvement, and we support all that initiative taken by the Finnish government. We support more and more the free trade agreements, and tax evasion, I mean policy against tax evasion as well. There is one point we disagree probably, but rather slightly, and this is harmonization of taxation. Now the European Union changed the rhetoric: it is not harmonization, it is coordination rather now, coordination of taxation. But we think that we must be careful with that, because tax competition is good for the European Economy, we should not give it up, therefore we are more conservative in that sense, we would like to maintain the situation in which we are in now, which is based on tax competition.

And finally, we discussed the Hungarian situation as well. I was happy to explain to the prime minister that we are moving quite well forward, according to our economic strategy. We are one of the five countries in the European Union which was able to reduce state indebtedness last year. Only five countries have done it so, and one of them was Hungary. The budget deficit was -1.9 last year, as here in Finland, and 600.000 people work now in Hungary who haven’t been working at the moment of the government change in 2010.

Hungary, if you take a closer look on it, is a success story, and we hope that based on that, Hungary will be abrogated from excessive deficit procedure. What is the most important for the Finnish people, I suppose, is that Hungary is the only country, which was a program country financed, supported by other countries’ tax payers. You know Hungary was the first country that collapsed prior to the Greeks in 2008 and only injections from the European Union and IMF was the means to maintain the operability of the country. And Hungary is the only country in the European Union who was member of that kind of a program and is not any more. So, we are out of that which means that Finnish people shouldn’t pay for Hungary.

Hungary is standing on its own legs. We would not like to stand on your legs, neither on the legs of the Germans. So we don’t need the Finnish money, please keep it. Even more: if you would like to help us, what could be very useful because the Hungarian economy is not in an easy position, give us not aid, but Finnish companies instead, come to Hungary, invest, make profit and make jobs for the people. Hungary is a country which did its homework. As the German chancellor said: „do your homework first”. I think now we are finally in that position, and Hungary is financed from the financial markets and not from aid programs, IMF or EU or whatever. I think it is good news for the Finnish people that we are not here for asking money. We are here just for friendship.

(Prime Minister’s Office)