The news of the fall of József Szájer concerned the Hungarian governing party throughout Europe; the government, using emergency authority, prohibited local governments from raising taxes; Hungary lived on average 134 thousand forints a month before the crisis. Here is the weekly economic summary of hvg.hu.

When József Szájer resigned from his MEP last Sunday, citing mental burdens, many of us wondered what the reason might be, but that he had to flee a party in violation of a ban on backpack assemblies that the police said that it is a drug. they would have guessed.

Judgments have been made as to whether its collapse is a deliberate pressure on the Hungarian government, but there are too many question marks to give a meaningful answer. All of this may even accelerate Fidesz’s withdrawal from the European People’s Party, and the assumptions that Fidesz will leave the People’s Party there alone have not been confirmed, and will not remain until it is voted out.

The European Court of Justice should reject Hungarian action against the European Parliament, Advocate General Michal Bobek suggests to the panel. The essence of the lawsuit is that the government disagrees on whether Sargentini’s report was actually voted by a two-thirds majority, and on this basis does not consider it justified that a case against Hungarian for crimes could have been initiated serious against the rule of law.

In any event, the Hungarian government has launched and launched several major legal battles before the European Court of Justice. But, as we have shown, these are all of a political nature, and in all of them, without exception, the government has failed or is at a loss.

One of the biggest surprises of the week in EU affairs was caused by Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Gowin when he spoke on Thursday about abandoning the imposition of the EU budget under certain conditions. However, no government decision has yet been made on this, and Gowin, as leader of one of the smaller coalition parties, has opposed the veto from the outset, so the veto issue of up on Poland’s domestic political balance.

We have a terrible week looking at the state of the coronavirus epidemic. There have never been as many deaths as there are now, and the number of active cases is growing. The government promises more epidemiological announcements next Monday.

Meanwhile, only one decision has become known: using the emergency mandate, the government has banned municipalities that are already on the threshold of their financial ability to raise taxes or introduce new taxes. György Gémesi, president of the Hungarian Association of Local Governments, told our question that this affects approximately 2,500 local governments, and it should come as no surprise that the government did not consult local government associations before the decision. Although Lajos Kósa said the government does not support the abolition of business tax, as companies’ incomes will decrease during the crisis, it will not solve all the problems of cities.

Anyway, András Tállai said the government would protect people from raising taxes in local governments, but the secretary of state also added that it is incomprehensible why they want to raise taxes at all. Mayor Péter Niedermüller of Erzsébetváros has gone the extra mile among the critics: he claims the decree is unconstitutional, so he will bring the tax increases already decided by the district into effect and await the decision of the Mansion House and the Constitutional Court.

Photo of the week: building on the Orbán family’s estate in Hatvanpuszta.

Compared to a year earlier, the performance of the Hungarian economy fell 4.6 percent in the third quarter of this year, the Central Statistical Office reported. Our economy rebounded at a good pace before the second wave of the epidemic came in, a 11.4 percent increase from the second quarter. The detailed figures show that work in the factories had resumed after the spring shock, but transport and warehouses collapsed, and a lack of foreign tourists is felt not only in tourism but also in trade.

The CSO also announced this week that Hungary’s store turnover is falling, the 1.9 percent drop being worse than most pessimistic expectation. Apparently, in October, people only took food and drink and medicine, almost everything else just when they finally had to. However, the situation in the industry can provide some cause for confidence. By October, it had not only returned to pre-crisis levels, but exceeded it, a 2.7 percent increase from a year earlier. According to the first data, there has been an increase in vehicle production and in the production of computers, electronics and optical products, which could help the entire Hungarian economy.

Although there were rumors that the Portuguese and Spanish governments wanted to drill some Hungarian agribusiness opportunity in Angola, according to our sources, there was no serious agricultural business there. We know that there are, in fact, political reasons why Viktor Orbán’s trip to Angola was delayed, not least thanks to a southern country, but the German lobby. They had no hard time: from the fact that Hungary drilled the promise of the Marrakesh declaration to Africa in 2018, the otherwise open-minded, anti-immigrant Hungarian government could be set up as a xenophobic and racist.

Indeed, a deal could have been reached with the Angolan electricity supplier. Ende wanted to buy transformers and other accessories from Hungarian CG, but that didn’t happen. This also highlights the failure of the Hungarian government’s opening in the south, at least in Africa. Significantly, no agreement has yet been reached that could be taken economically seriously or would justify the strategy’s opening of the south.

The average Hungarian lived on 134 thousand forints a month in 2019, according to the CSO’s Home Living Standards publication. Divided into income tithes, we can see that the poorest households live on HUF 41,000 a month, while the wealthiest households live on HUF 312,000 a month.

In 2019, with a decrease of 118,000 people, 1,695,000 people were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, 17.7 percent of the total population. The figures also show that the income of singles and childless couples is higher than that of households with children. Large families are still falling behind in terms of per capita income.

Lillafüred Trout Farm supplies 70 percent of Hungarian trout production – farm manager György Hoitsy told us about the type of work behind it. “It’s quite a slave labor,” he said, having increased its annual production from one and a half to sixty tonnes since he started working there in 1982.

This is because trout need cold, oxygen-rich water, and although the temperature is roughly that of the spring water, oxygen supply to the water must be increased in several ways.

György Hoitsy also said that drought years are becoming more frequent, and in the high average precipitation magnitude is falling more and more. Although there is no need to be afraid to warm the spring water for the time being, for example, during hot weather, feeding must be stopped, which also slows down fish growth – even by months.



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