Brussels “bureaucrats” hate Hungarian proposals to reduce energy prices?

PM Viktor Orbán said in his today interview that Brussels “should suspend its policy of raising prices” to shelter households from the effects of the war which could result in bills potentially three to four times their current level.

“Brussels bureaucrats hate this Hungarian proposal,” he said, adding the issue would have to be approached “very carefully”. Sooner or later the EU would have to realise that “the policy of raising prices artificially” should be abandoned, he added.

Orbán said the war had merely accelerated energy price inflation which he blamed on EU policymaking.

The European Commission insists that households should be forced to use less energy to protect the climate, “and that’s why they’re raising energy prices every year…”

he said.

At least half the inflation rate is due to rising energy prices, Orbán said, adding that inflation could be kept in check were it not for “Brussels bureaucrats” putting extra costs on energy consumption. On the issue of possible food shortages due to the war in Ukraine, Orbán said the French president and other European leaders had “sounded the alarm” on this matter.

Grain shortages can destabilise not only countries but entire regions and continents,

Orbán noted. With production losses in Ukraine, the knock-on effect would be “millions of migrants” coming to Europe. The Arab spring, he added, “caused by a shortage of grain”, was one of the triggers of the great wave of migration in recent years.