Austria has abandoned the plan of reducing the family support of foreigners working there; the decision which also concerns Hungarian families is a great achievement of Austrian-Hungarian talks, Zoltán Balog, Minister of Human Capacities stated on the programme 180 minutes of Kossuth Rádió on Wednesday morning.

The Minister was asked about the Austrian plan to the effect that in Austria the social support paid with respect to the children living abroad of EU nationals working in Austria would be adjusted to the level of benefits in the country of origin.

According to the Minister’s communication, both Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and himself made it clear at the talks held with the Austrian party that they are unable to accept Austria’s unilateral measures, and the Austrian partner “has come to see our point of view”. Mr Balog said: it is a great achievement that the neighbouring country has abandoned its intention to cause Hungarian families financial losses.

In his view, it would have been unjust and “unfair” to select a single element of the Hungarian family support system. The Austrian party claimed that there were some who abused the system, he said, adding: naturally, it is necessary to take action in these cases, but this does not mean that those who work hard there should sustain any disadvantage.

Regarding CEU, Mr Balog said: a non-transparent, chaotic legal arrangement with a set of privileges has come into being at the institution, about which there has been an ongoing legal debate since 1993. “This must come to an end under any circumstances.” “We would not like CEU to continue its operations in this form”, he said, adding: there are, however, Hungarian interests attached to the survival of the Central European University (Közép-európai Egyetem) which is an independent institution with Hungarian accreditation. There have been valuable academic workshops within the framework of the latter also to date, but it is unclear how CEU has contributed to these, he said.

(MTI)