Gergely Gulyás, the prime minister's chief of staff, said having reviewed the European Commission's letter activating the conditionality mechanism linking EU funding to the rule of law, the government sees “no obstacle” to signing the recovery fund agreement.
“We’ve been negotiating on [issues the EC’s letter raises] with the Commission for months … There’s no issue on which we do not have a shared position or on which we couldn’t find a solution acceptable to both our government and the Commission,” Gulyás said. Issues on which the government is unwilling to compromise, however, include its insistence on staying out of the war in Ukraine, refusing to send weapons or soldiers, and not allowing the Hungarian people to pay the price of the war, he said.
Meanwhile, Gulyás said the government has decided to raise pensions by a further 3.9 percent from July in light of higher than expected inflation, bringing the overall pension hike to 8.9 percent. Based on current projections and finance ministry and central bank data, the government now believes that an annual inflation rate of 8.9 percent is more realistic than earlier projections, he added, noting that the war in Ukraine was creating a high level of uncertainty. The government is legally obliged to compensate pensioners in November if inflation exceeds the rate of pension hikes, he noted.
Photo credit: MTI