Next year s budget is focused on maintaining the defence against the epidemic, restarting the economy, protecting jobs and creating new ones, Hungarian Finance Minister Mihaly Varga said.

The Parliament adopted Hungary s central budget for 2021 on Friday.

In the general debate of the proposal, Finance Minister Mihaly Varga called next year s budget the budget of economy protection, which includes the necessary resources to support families with children, to value pensioners, to protect jobs and to create new ones, while maintaining pandemic preparedness.

With 133 yes and 61 no votes, the MPs approved the bill from which the government expects, apart from reducing public debt, a dynamic, 4.8% GDP growth, a moderate, 3% inflation and a deficit target for 2.9 % of GDP, below the Maastricht reference value.

At a press conference after the adoption of the bill, Mr Varga said it was a pleasure for the government to see that the vast majority of MPs agreed that the measures taken to protect people in the emergency were right, that the Economic Protection Fund should be maintained, and also supported the restart of the country next year based on the Health Insurance and Epidemic Protection Fund and the Economic Protection Fund.

Next year s budget will focus on maintaining the defence against the epidemic, restarting the economy, protecting jobs and creating new ones. However, the values on which previous budgets and the government s economic policy were based would also be preserved. The government is committed to supporting families, raising children and respecting the elderly, furthermore, it intends to continue to maintain the security of the country, the minister said.

He added that the government also remained consistent in its approach to economic policy. It continues to consider the protection and strengthening of the Hungarian economy as a central task, goes on with the policy of tax cuts and investment support, and pursues disciplined public finance management.

Among the amendments that received a green light during the parliamentary debate, he highlighted that from 1 July 2021, infant care benefit will increase from 70 per cent to 100 per cent. The support for road construction will increase by 52 billion forints under the Hungarian Village Program, and the budget for food security and supply will increase by 50 billion forints. He added that the necessary resources for these will be created by the increase in tax revenues and the whitening of the economy.

With the adoption of the amendments, it is also possible to develop children s diabetes centres, to operate the school guard network, to carry out the wage decompression of the researchers of the Eotvos Lorand Research Network, to support the development of the road network of Budapest, the capital s agglomeration and the districts, furthermore, to continue the Diaspora higher education scholarship programme, the minister said.

Mr Varga emphasized that next year the state support of the local government system would increase by 16 per cent, from 739 billion forints to 865 billion forints.

Support for the capital s municipality will also increase significantly, the finance minister added. Furthermore, if the economy grows by almost 5 per cent next year, the revenues that serve the stable management of local governments would also increase proportionately, he stressed.

Responding to questions, the finance minister also told that there was no area in the budget for which the resources would not be higher next year than this year.

He also mentioned that so far 480 billion forints had been paid for pandemic defence, however, there are still ongoing contracts, therefore, a full account can only be made in the final accounts.

He also said on a question, „although they were watching closely,” no acceptable opposition modifier was found. The opposition submitted 800 amendments, which would have increased the general government deficit to 6,400 billion forints or 17 per cent, the minister said.