Hungarian foreign minister warns against ‘socialist-type’ proposals

Some Western European countries are seeking to break central Europe’s competitiveness “through a socialist-type economic policy”, the foreign minister told MTI on Wednesday on the sidelines of an economic forum in Poland’s Krynica.

Péter Szijjártó cited “demands” to harmonise taxes and debt communitisation. He warned that if such proposals were to be implemented “the competitiveness of the central European region as well as of the European Union as a whole would be killed”.

Harmonising taxes in the EU would mean hiking taxes in Hungary, therefore the Hungarian government “will fight this to its last breath”, he said.

Concerning the idea of debt communitisation, he said “this would mean nothing other than passing the debt of some countries with irresponsible economic policies onto other EU members”. He added that Hungary’s public debt has been continually decreasing in recent years.

Thanks to structural reforms and “brave reform steps taken”, central Europe has some of the lowest taxes on the continent, and the investment environment is the most attractive. Central Europe has become the engine of economic growth for the entire continent, yet some western European countries plan to reduce central Europe’s competitive advantage by trying to force through the EU’s socialist-type bureaucratic measures, he added.

Szijjártó said

the EU could only be made competitive again if competition were allowed internally.

Economic competition within the EU is clearly in the interest of Hungary and central Europe, he added.