The Government will discuss increased support for families agreeing to raise more children at its Wednesday meeting, the Minister heading the Prime Minister’s Office said on Tuesday in Székkutas.

János Lázár said before an audience of some one hundred and fifty people at his forum held in the locality in Csongrád County that a few years ago 90,000 children were born annually, and this number has been successfully raised to 93,000. At the same time, however, some 125-130 thousand people die annually. The essence of the debate conducted with Brussels is that, according to the Government’s position, we must support Hungarian families from our own resources and encourage young people to have more children. The demographic problems we have cannot be solved through the resettlement in Hungary of people coming from Syria or Africa, immigration should not be supported, but stopped, the politician said who is also Member of Parliament for the constituency.

According to the Minister, the main question of the next year or two will be as to who will decide who may live in Hungary. In this struggle, the Government needs the people’s support, he said with reference to the national consultation.

It is in the people’s best interests that the important issues of independence and sovereignty – such as whom we should live together with, how much we should pay in taxes, how to use our taxpayers’ money and what the system of social benefits should be like – should be decided locally, rather than in Brussels, he stressed.

Mr Lázár argued that the threat of migration which Hungary had already experienced once before in 2015 is not over yet, hundreds of thousands of people may set out from the Balkans or Turkey at any time. The Minister pointed out that 40 per cent of the Hungarian population live in villages and small localities. It is the Government’s duty to create the possibility of a life that is worthy of the 21st century in every locality, he stated. In 2010, the Government’s most important goal was that people have jobs, in particular, in small localities which were most affected by depopulation, the politician said.

He added: Székkutas is a good example of the results achieved where those who want to can find jobs, and unemployment is around 2 per cent in the village. The past few years of the locality has been characterised by an unprecedented phase of development: also including the refurbishment of road 47, development funds worth HUF 7 billion have been channelled to the locality with a population of just over two thousand.

(MTI)