The Government of Hungary has been and will be committed to a strict fiscal policy, a budget deficit below 3 percent of GDP and keeping state debt on a descending path, Minister of State for Parliament András Tállai said in response to the recently published European Commission EDP report. The amount of EUR 3bn among June data that the Commission has received is allocated for debt repayments of this year and that will cut state debt by 3 percent, he added.

Thanks to the acceleration of output growth, the 2.9 percent budget deficit target will be achievable. It is well-known, that the Government has upwardly revised its GDP growth estimate from 2.3 percent in the Convergence Programme to 3.1 percent.

Output growth at the industrial sector – an economic growth engine – has reached a three-year record high and top ranking within the EU which has been instrumental in bringing employment to historic highs. Since 2010, Hungary has been one of the few member states with an excellent track record regarding the fulfilling of EU obligations, thanks to which Brussels has lifted EDP against the country concluding a nine-year long procedure.

It is not for the first time that Brussels is making unfounded assumptions: last year’s budget deficit had been prognosticated at 2.9 percent, which in fact was only 2.4 percent. This has obviously proven that the Government has been right. In accordance with the wish of Hungarian voters, the Government has put an end to the economic policy of its leftist-liberalist predecessors characterized by sharp U-turns of fiscal tightening and loosening, which served the single goal of generating votes time after time.

Instead of that, since 2010, the economic policy of the Government has been consistently easing the burdens of families and employees, and it has been evenly spreading the weight of burden-sharing to economic stakeholders who had only enjoyed massive profits resulting from activities in Hungary. Whereas the profit expectations of public service monopolies owned by international companies had generated the most expensive service charges of the EU, the Government has by now reversed this trend.

In light of the above fact, it is quite absurd that Brussels analysts – armed with outdated statistics and coming to false conclusions -- are damaging the credibility of the country and the Hungarian Government.

(Ministry for National Economy)