Socialists Launch Consultation on EU Recovery Funds
The Socialists (MSZP) are launching a consultation with trade unions on the use of the European Union’s coronavirus recovery fund, an MEP of the opposition party said on Tuesday.
István Ujhelyi told an online press conference that Hungary was slated to receive over 5,000 billion forints (EUR 13.9bn) from the EU funds raised to offset the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. Spending is tied to “strict conditions and concrete goals”, and the monies will have to be accounted for, he noted.
Member states are required to prepare reform plans after consulting with local authorities, civil organisations and trade unions, “to make sure that the European community is not forced to fund certain governments’ pet projects,” Ujhelyi said.
Socialists Call for Narrowing the Gap Between Rich and Poor
The opposition Socialists (MSZP) have called for narrowing the gap between rich and poor.
Speaking in an online press conference on Saturday, the party’s deputy chairman, Imre Komjáthi, said that ever since Fidesz came to power in 2010 the government had introduced many unfair measures that increased inequality, making the rich richer and the poor poorer.
Komjáthi said Fidesz liked to cite averages, but the reality was that the incomes and pensions of a great portion of the population were below average.
He said narrowing the gap between rich and poor would be a task for “the pro-republican” parties after 2022, he said, adding that the Socialists insisted that all Hungarians had the right to fair wages and a fair pension.
Socialists (MSZP) believe the government "throws free money" at multinational companies instead of defending workplaces under threat due to coronavirus.
People and local governments don’t need “idle talk”, they need more money, the deputy head of the opposition Socialists (MSZP) said at a press conference in front of the House of Terror in Budapest on Sunday.
Imre Komjáthi said former Fidesz MEP József Szájer‘s book “Don’t Hurt the Hungarians!” is still available in the House of Terror’s webshop and called the title the “essence of Fidesz-KDNP’s sanctimonious, deceitful and feigned policy”.
He said there is not a single sentence in the book about “not hurting” the Hungarian on disability pension, pensioners or workers, or about “not signing strategic agreements with the kinds of companies that disregard the rights of Hungarian workers and unions”.