It is the government’s task to make as many people as possible understand that there is a serious reason for harsh austerity measures, without which there would be a much steeper downturn, more want and a longer period of going without, Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai said in an interview published in Saturday’s issue of daily Nepszava.
The aim of the measures, unmatched in twelve years, was to win back confidence for Hungary, said Bajnai, who compared confidence to air: “When it is there, we hardly realise it, but when it starts to run out, we start to choke. And Hungary practically choked in the months after the start of the crisis.”
The Opposition is, for political interests, communicating as if there were not a global crisis, as if the government were squeezing people for the fun of it, Bajnai told the paper.
Bajnai said he saw little room for manoeuvre in the area of economic policy and no chance to deviate much from the current path even if there is a change of government after general elections in the spring.
For one thing, Hungary has an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union that runs until next October; for another, the European Commission’s excessive deficit procedure against the country has not been closed, and if Hungary fails to meet its commitments in the procedure, it could lose EU funding, he added.
