In the opinion of Minister for National Economy Mihály Varga, the implementation of a proposal by Poland, which recommends the establishment of a joint EU investment fund and the drawing in of private sector resources in order to boost economic growth, would be favourable also for Hungary.

Speaking in Milan following an informal Ecofin meeting the Minister said that at the session -- besides discussing an overview of European economic and growth outlook -- some concrete proposals have also been tabled.

Among these he called it noteworthy that Poland would stimulate economic growth through the engaging of private sector resources. This EUR 700bn proposal would not only redistribute existing EU funding but establish a joint investment fund that could raise funds through the engaging of private sector resources for the implementation of primarily energy, transport and info-communication investment projects.

The new joint fund is to issue EU bonds which in this way would not increase the state debt of guarantor countries, Mihály Varga stressed.

Speaking about others proposals the Minister added that Romania’s idea for deducting increasing Romanian defence expenditures from the country’s fiscal deficit was received with some reservations. “I do not think that differences in defence industry spending between EU member states should be an issue of state budgets; this would benefit countries which are planning to spend more on defence technology,” he said and emphasised that defence spending should not be assisted by “accounting tricks”.

(Ministry for National Economy)