According to Minister of Finance Mihály Varga, there may be no point in negotiations on the upcoming EU budget with the current European Commission in view of the fact that following the 2019 European Parliament elections a new body will be formed, and its President is not expected to be called Jean-Claude Juncker.

Mr. Varga spoke about this in an interview published on the Origo news portal on Saturday, stressing that the newly formed EC must be given the right to draw up the budget for its period in office itself.

“The current situation is a strange one, in which a body wants to push through budgetary target figures that it will not be affected by, and which it will not have the opportunity to implement”, the Minister explained.

“I think it very probable that the new European Commission to be formed following the elections will draw up the new budget”, he said.

“There is a kind of quiet, economic war going on”, he declared. “This is what is really behind the disputes surrounding the posting directive and the social pillar, and the seven-year budget plan, which would take away from Central and Eastern Europe in favour of the Mediterranean countries, is also part of this phenomenon”, Mr. Varga said.

“In addition, it is utterly unacceptable that the European Commission is preparing a pro-immigration draft budget that would take money away from the European people while providing more funding than previously to migrants and for the receiving of migrants. It is a bad proposal and is generating bad debates”, the Minister said.

With relation to the state of the economy, Mr. Varga highlighted the fact that the favourable growth figure for the second quarter of this year, which “puts us on the podium within the European Union”, was a pleasant surprise to everyone. The Finance Minister said the projected growth of 4 percent for this year is realistic in view of the fact that the GDP has increased by 4.5 percent in the first quarter and by 4.6 percent in Q2.

The Ministry of Finance continues to calculate with a target deficit of 2.4 percent, he stated, noting that although the cash flow deficit had spiked during the course of the year, this was only due to the EU financing mechanism.

According to Mr. Varga, internal processes are facilitating the further growth of the economy, and during the upcoming months negative surprises can only be caused by market fluctuations derived from outside, from the global economy. He stressed, however, that the country is much better prepared to handle external difficulties now that in was in 2010.

“The country’s external financing position is stable, the budget has a significant reserve, the sovereign debt to GDP ratio has fallen from 83 percent to 73 percent, and its foreign currency ratio has fallen to under 20 percent, while if needed financing can be solved independently, from purely the forint market”, the Finance Minister listed.

(MTI)