Through the amendment of this year’s budget, the Government adds HUF 30bn to existing funds to assist the handling of the migrant crisis, Deputy State Secretary Richárd Adorján said at a press conference.

The amendment, he added, increased the amount in the Extraordinary Government Expenditures Fund by HUF 60bn, to HUF 160bn. An additional amount of HUF 1bn will also be added to the allocation of the Ministry of Interior as a contingency reserve for crisis management. The Deputy State Secretary stressed that the cash-flow deficit of the general government budget accumulated in the initial eight months of 2015 should not be disquieting as revenue inflow has been even higher than prior estimates and it is sufficient for covering extra costs incurred due to the migrant situation.

Out of the HUF 60bn increase, HUF 30bn is to be disbursed for crisis management (on top of HUF 30bn spent hitherto this year) and the other half of the amount, HUF 30bn, will serve as funding for contingency spending and it is designed to cover the costs of any other unforeseeable event.

He emphasised that as revenues have exceeded preliminary projections and the Government is expecting several hundreds of billions of forints in EU funding in the last three months of 2015, this amendment does not jeopardize the ESA deficit target of 2.4 percent of GDP for 2015.

(Ministry for National Economy)