President Ader: Solar panel fee mistake

Budapest (MTI) – The government has made a mistake regarding the administration of an environmental product fee on solar panels, the president said on Wednesday.

Related article: 
Another Hungaricum: Green Tax On Solar Panels
Jobbik calls on govt to withdraw planned tax on solar panels 

Addressing the heads of parliamentary groups in a letter, Janos Ader said “the government, parliament, opposition parties, the green ombudsman and the president of the republic have all made a mistake,” when they administered a fee that did not encourage the use of solar power.

The government had not excercised “due caution” when setting the amount of the new environmental product fee payable on solar panels, he said. Lawmakers then endorsed the bill without looking at expected impact and the opposition and the green ombudsman failed to point out the mistake, he added.

He said his own mistake was not to notice this “environmental nonsense” hidden in one of the law packages passed.

Ader said that parliament should abandon adopting “packaged legislation” which is a bad practice.

He called on parliamentary groups to help correct this mistake in a joint effort.

Zsolt V Nemeth, the state secretary in charge of environmental and farming affairs, said in a statement that the majority of solar panels sold in Hungary are from imports and thus the product fee will have no impact on the labour market. The environmental product fee is payable by the first distributor of the product in Hungary, the statement published on the government’s website said.