“I suggest that the new Finance Minister should be János Veres as of next Monday,” Gyurcsány said at the meeting of senior coalition force Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) Monday morning. “In the next few weeks the govern-ment will initiate several moves in the framework of ‘the policy of hundred steps’, and to achieve this, the cooperation with government parties should be improved,” Gyurcsány explained the change. János Veres, Chief of Staff at the Prime Minister’s Office and formerly political state secretary of the Finance Ministry, is expected to have wider political and professional support than Draskovics, Gyurcsány added.

Gyurcsány said he will rearrange his office and his new chief of staff will be György Szilvásy, currently state secretary of the Interior Ministry.
Veres was born in Nyírbátor in 1957. He was a member of MSZMP, the former Communist party. He was the mayor of Nyírbátor for 10 months, starting Oc-tober 2002. Between March 2003 and October 2004, he was political state sec-retary at the Finance Ministry, and since then he worked as a state secretary at the Prime Minister’s Office. He is an MP, he holds two degrees and speaks German and Chinese.

The forint started weakening against the euro on the news, in the afternoon it was trading at 248.35/75 against the euro, down from 247.61/91 on Friday. In-traday lows reached 249.00 right after the announcement.
According to press reports, Draskovics was blamed for making a tax reform not competitive enough compared to the tax systems in neighboring countries.