Istvan Stumpf: "The last nail in the republic's coffin"

The government is headed for a slow and painful death - and the only hope is that the government will refrain from using the national development plan to buy the votes it needs to survive, says Istvan Stumpf. Only government with broad support can hope to lift the country out of its crisis, says the former chancery minister.

hvg.hu: But you have to admit that no matter what geniuses serve in government, it can't make any big moves. It has to stick to the EU's convergence programme and the stability pact that it imposes.

István Stumpf: The fundamental aim isn't fiscal convergence but real convergence - the social and economic differences between regions and countries and within countries should be as small as possible. That's the aim of the EU's structural funds. But if fiscal balance leads to growing social tension, then the country becomes unsustainable in the long run. The government is very proud of having cut the budget deficit they created. But in every other area - be it economic growth, unemployment, inflation or job creation - the numbers are very bad - even though these are the areas that most directly affect people.

I think the EU funds that we can obtain would have created far more freedom of manoeuvre for the country. But it was impossible to create a social consensus for the national development plan - it just became another tool for political bribery. I only hope that this minority government will not resort to using the national development plan to buy votes, giving one MP's constituency a Ft5bn bypass in exchange for his vote on the next law, while giving another constituency a water-treatment plant, and maybe a main square rehabilitation project to a third MP. It could really waste funds which could help the whole country catch up. But I suspect that's what will happen.

The restructuring of the government also supports this aim. Before it wasn't a coincidence even before when Ferenc Gyurcsany devised a structure which placed him directly in charge of the state secretaries who had immense spending power by virtue of being in charge of development policy. Now Gyurcsany is implementing this on a ministerial level. The party treasurer now has his own people in the state apparatus, which means the Socialist Party can begin its financial preparatiosn for the elections. The current minority government is just deepening the crisis - it's the sign of a long-drawn-out death.

hvg.hu: So this demise could take another two years?

István Stumpf: It could carry on, because nothing has changed in terms of parliamentary debate. The political elite is carrying on just as it when it stopped a month ago. The economy's problems aren't being dealt with, and nothing's being done about public administration. Gyurcsany himself has said that tax and pensions reform can only be discussed seriously in 2018. So they're contradicting themselves, while most of the analysts don't know what the government wants to do. We've seen plenty of governing programmes - the government has loads of ideas - reorganising the government, offering up a 48-point programme, a transparency package, and then it just forgets them. And then comes a completely new programme, which also ends up in the rubbish pile. I don't know how this could change.