Hungary continues to oppose proposals aiming to curtail the taxation policy sovereignty of member states, Minister of Finance Mihály Varga said, following the latest Ecofin session in Brussels.

The European Commission, according to a recently submitted proposal, would gradually move from unanimous vote to qualified majority voting in taxation affairs, and this is opposed by a number of member states, among them by Hungary. The proposal would curtail the sphere of competence of member countries, and given the upcoming EP elections its timing is inappropriate, Mihály Varga pointed out.

The European Commission once again upwardly revised the estimate of Hungary’s economic growth for 2018, which is actually 4.8 percent, even higher than the Finance Ministry’s prior expectation of 4.6 percent, the Minister said. Extra growth is seen to have been generated by outstanding growth in the volume of investment and favourable labour market trends. The economic protection programme, which the Ministry is currently working on, is designed to ensure that Hungary’s growth rate exceeds the EU average through the counterbalancing of global economic effects, he said. The European Commission predicts, he added, that the CEE region may be a key growth driver within the EU as these countries are set to grow faster that the EU average.

Speaking of the revision of the European System of Financial Supervision (ESFS), Mihály Varga noted that EU finance ministers have given their backing to a common proposal by member states which contains proposals on the fight against money-laundering and the financing of terrorism.

(Ministry of Finance)