Hungary is bearing the cost in billions of forints by having delayed passing amendments to the central bank law until today, the opposition Socialist party said on Friday.
The Socialists, which voted for the amendments which served to unblock the path to official talks with the IMF, EU and ECB, said there was a disjunction between Mihaly Varga, Hungary’s negotiator who understood the need to get the ball rolling on securing financial aid, and Gyorgy Matolcsy, the economy minister, who, they insisted, still refused to support the talks.
Istvan Jozsa, the party’s deputy parliamentary group leader, said the Socialists had asked Varga to brief it on his precise mandate in the talks with the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the European Central Bank to secure a 15-billion-euro backstop.
He said it would have been possible for parliament to have passed the amendments as early as January, thereby saving 100 billion forints in costs accumulated due to the premium Hungary must pay to bond investors due to doubts surrounding Hungary’s ability to finance itself without an IMF deal.
The Socialist politician also said a potential obstacle talks had emerged in the form of a new threat to the independence of the National Bank of Hungary, due to the extension of the financial transactions tax to cover central bank lending.
