There was also agreement at the summit of EU finance ministers that a supportive budget policy is still needed to restart the economy, because withdrawing it too early could even result in a new recession, Mihály Varga stated in Brdo, Slovenia, after the meeting of the EU finance ministers (ECOFIN) According to the announcement of PM.

Among other things, the heads of the EU ministries discussed how, after the crisis, the member states can return to the balanced budgetary policy required by the general EU rules, without this being detrimental to growth.

Mihály Varga emphasized: the position of the Hungarian government has been clear from the beginning, after economic protection, the economy needs to be restarted, after which it will be necessary to gradually return to reducing the budget deficit. We are currently in the phase of restarting the economy, so a supportive budget policy is still needed, he stated.

This is proven - he continued - by the fact that the government's economic protection and restart measures contributed about 8 percentage points to the economy's performance this year, i.e. by that much they mitigate the effects of the crisis caused by the epidemic. The restart of the Hungarian economy is one of the fastest, compared to the same period of the previous year, the second quarter GDP growth of 17.9 percent is currently the third in the EU ranking.

The minister pointed out that the participants of the meeting agreed that withdrawing subsidies too early - as happened after the 2008 crisis - could set back the growth of European economies and even lead to a new crisis.

Mihály Varga said that he and his colleagues also discussed current issues related to the future of international taxation. Hungary has a consistent and firm position regarding the global minimum tax, the government says no to tax increases. The introduction of the 15 percent minimum tax would mean a tax increase and a deterioration of competitiveness for Hungary, so the Hungarian government does not support it, even under international pressure, the Minister of Finance stated.

Source: Magyar Hírlap