Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office to be set up as stand-alone ministry – UPDATE

Budapest, September 22 (MTI) – The Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office will be established as an independent ministry.

The related bill was presented to parliament on Tuesday.

The cabinet office will be a ministry in charge of general political coordination, according to the bill submitted by Janos Lazar, the minister who heads the Prime Minister’s Office.

The prime minister’s cabinet chief will be Antal Rogan, who leads the Fidesz parliamentary group.

Lazar proposed supplementing the 2015 central budget with a chapter concerning the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office.

The government will grant funds required for the operation of the new office.

“Its main task will be whatever the prime minister defines,” Rogan, the outgoing group leader of the ruling Fidesz party, said after a bill went before parliament on Tuesday for setting up a new stand-alone cabinet ministry to carry out general political coordination tasks.

In the current government model, the prime minister’s office, headed by Janos Lazar, carries out various tasks. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has now decided that this should be supplemented by a cabinet office to carry out general political coordination, Rogan told MTI.

The cabinet office will employ the premier’s personal working team whose main task will be to aid Orban, Rogan said. A government statute will be published at a later date, defining tasks for the various independent units within the new office. He added that one such task will be the coordination of communications.