Menu
The Prime Minister wrote “the plan of action is complete. While it has not yet been presented or announced, it has not yet been subjected to political scrutiny, we usually refer to it as a peace budget which is already there in the drawer. This is more or less the case, and unless Governor Matolcsy forces us to, we will not be required to pull it out of there prematurely.”
The focus of this peace budget or plan of action is that in 2025 we will push economic growth to a bracket between 3 and 5 per cent, he wrote, stressing that it is necessary to adopt a budget which – while preserving financial balance which is necessary due to the requirements of the credit rating agencies and the entire financial world – is able to produce a growth between 3 and 5 per cent.
This is the basis of everything, and I think we are capable of that, Mr Orbán added.
The Prime Minister highlighted that we needed a degree of dynamism as regarded wages. Employers and workers are currently engaged in a very dynamic series of talks about next year’s wages. “The government tries to stay out of this, but to all intents and purposes, trade unions will agree with workers on a very significant pay rise to which the government will affix its seal. Evidently, they also want to involve our money in this – which is irrelevant in this regard – but quite clearly, there is a series of talks under way about a very significant multiannual minimum wage increase,” he pointed out.
Mr Orbán wrote that in some areas a dynamic growth in wages and salaries has already started, including in health care, while the largest teacher pay rise in the history of Hungary is now under way and will also continue next year.
The Prime Minister also stressed that family grants must be increased because “high inflation has diminished their value.”
“After 2020 when problems started with Covid we were unable to match the rate of devaluation by increasing their amounts, but now we must do so,” he wrote, highlighting that next year, in 2025 we will have to double the rate of the tax benefit provided in relation to children for which “Minister Hankó has already drawn up the necessary plans.”
“At the same time, Minister Márton Nagy is doing quite well in the process of launching a programme for small businesses which is akin to the former Széchenyi Plan: if you invest one forint, we will also give you one. Meaning that there is also a programme involving small and medium-sized businesses, not the big ones,” his post reads.
Mr Orbán pointed out that the coordinated management of the economy was a pre-condition of such an economic action plan.
“The more we listen to the central bank governor, the more we have the feeling that we’re heading in the opposite direction, but that’s only an appearance. In actual fact, we’re making good progress towards a coordinated system for the management of the economy,” the Prime Minister concluded.
He wrote “we need an Erhard – who was once György Matolcsy until he became central bank governor – who is a top minister handling economic and fiscal means all at once and is able to oversee the implementation of this plan of action.”
“The person of this minister depends on the decision the government will be compelled to make in consequence of the fact that – regrettably – on 1 March the central bank governor’s seat will fall vacant. It is evident that the person who will take that seat cannot be that top minister – to put it bluntly. One will be an economic top minister, while the other one will be the governor of the central bank,” the Prime Minister’s post reads.
