Speaking at Hungarian business weekly Figyelő’s “Top200” awards gala, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that “Since 2010 over three thousand billion forints has remained with Hungarian families”.

According to figyelő.hu, at the beginning of his speech the Prime Minister said that politicians rarely attend such events organised by media publications, “the simple reason being that an outdated approach exists in which the press and media is seen as necessarily part of the opposition”. Mr. Orbán explained that “This notion is the result of an intellectual error, as the press – and thinking people in general, including journalists – generally have a critical nature. The error lies in the fact that many people think that the object of this criticism is the Government – when in fact it is the world in general”.

The Prime Minister recounted two stories about former U.S. President Ronald Reagan. At his first Cabinet meeting, Reagan turned to his ministers and said: “I hate inflation, I hate taxes and I hate communism. Do something about it”, and promptly closed the meeting. In the other story, when Reagan was asked for details on his new Cold War strategy, he simply replied: “We win, they lose”.

The Prime Minister then summarised the results that Hungary has achieved by following Reagan’s “little catechism”: “We have halved inflation, we are continuously reducing taxes, and the communists are in mothballs”. The Prime Minister said that in 2010, when the country was at rock bottom, “this is how Hungarian logic works – when you’re at rock bottom you examine the foundations”. The Government did just that, he said, and found that the foundations are good. “The Hungarian people like to work, can endure a high workload, and act pre-emptively, meaning that they don’t sit around waiting for miracles to happen”, he stated, and “in addition to this they are also capable of making responsible decisions”.

“If the foundations were good in 2010, that means that the problem was with politics, because it failed to bring our capabilities to the surface”, he continued.

“Hungarian entrepreneurs and the directors of companies operating in Hungary have made a major contribution to everything that has happened since 2010”, Mr. Orbán declared. He pointed out that in 2010 the chances of failure were greater than those of success, and “this means that those who stood by us certainly didn’t do so in a calculating way”. He also recalled that “although they protested, in the end the banks also stood by the Government and paid their taxes, the large international and Hungarian companies also stood by the country and paid their taxes, and small and medium-sized enterprises also did what they had to  do then”, the Prime Minister said.

“This is how we succeeded in progressing to the stage at which last year we were able to forge alliances with the private sector that included tax cuts”, Mr. Orbán said, adding that “With this, we have opened a new phase in the history of the Hungarian economy, because we are putting an end to the era of low wages”.

“There is still much to do. As far as the condition of the enterprise society is concerned, Hungary is unfortunately only towards the end of the middle rank in Europe”, Mr. Orbán declared, adding that other countries in the region liberated from communism at the same time as Hungary have been more successful in accumulating capital, and have realised a significant amount of private wealth. The Prime Minister said that the explanation is that “In Hungary it took longer to clear away the debris of communism”. He stressed that “this was perhaps also made worse by the fact that when we joined the EU we behaved like an infatuated husband: we believed everything and said nothing”.

According to the Prime Minister, it can now be stated that it was a good decision to establish the Hungarian model: “instead of a benefits-based economy, we laid the foundations for a work-based economy, and made sure that foreign capital has an interest not only in profit, but also in Hungary’s success”. He observed that people often say that the Hungarian economy’s achievements are only temporary, “but I believe that you, who know the reality of the Hungarian economy very well, realise that the Hungarian economy stands on solid foundations”. He declared that “we are on the threshold of an era of prosperity that is in no small way thanks to successful Hungarian enterprises”.

“If we add up the results of everything – the tax benefits for families and newlyweds, the extra income from flat rate income tax, the family tax allowance and cutting the rate of tax – then since 2010 over 3,000 billion forints (EUR 9.7bn) has remained with Hungarian families”, Mr. Orbán emphasised.

Mr. Orbán said that there is now enough surplus strength to enable Hungarian enterprises to invest outside the borders of Hungary and throughout the Carpathian Basin. According to the article published in Figyelő, the Prime Minister explained that “We want Hungarian and Hungarian-based companies to grow to become regional enterprises, and we also want to have Hungarian global brands”.

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)