Changing figures
The government recently changed the way it calculates the budget deficit. It forecast a deficit of 8.8 per cent of GDP for 2006, even though it already stood at 8 per cent in June. When prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany and finance minister Janos Veres met with Joaquin Almunia, the European Union finance commissioner, the trio agreed that Hungary's convergence programme could only be accepted if the costs of building motorways were accounted for within the budget. This accounting change forced revisions to the 2007 and 2008 deficit plans and meant that the introduction of the euro had to be postponed to 2011 or later.
© Nemzeti Autópálya Rt. |
In 1998, the Orban government promised to build 600km of motorway in five years. None were built over the first three and a half years. In the months before the 2002 elections, 20km of motorway were built in record time.
Between 2002 and 2006, under the Medgyessy and Gyurcsany governments, 400km of motorway were built. Why was this necessary? Was so much road needed and so quickly? Before the 2002 elections, Peter Medgyessy promised motorways, and he started work on them immediately on taking office. Istvan Csillag, the economics minister, introduced a plan for an accelerated motorway-building programme, saying that this would attract investors into the country. Whether this really is the case is open to question, but even if motorways were the key to bringing in foreign investment, they should only have been constructed if there was money to do so. There was no money, but they were still built.
Gyurcsany took office in the third quarter of 2004, by which time it was necessary to finish the motorways on which work had already started. But it was wrong to start work on new roads in 2005 and 2006.
At least the new prime minister might claim that he had had little time to get to know the country's financial situation. But now?
It is still the case that roads that were begun before have to be finished in 2006. But the government should make clear that not one metre of new motorway will be built in 2007 and 2008.
Critics at home and abroad say the government's budget plans focus on raising revenues while doing little to cut spending. If only for this reason, it would have been better to cut costs by the simplest means possible: by suspending the construction of new motorways.
Companies involved in building motorways as well as experts and officials all say that motorways should be built using EU money. But this is a poor argument. It is true that the country will have more EU money at its disposal in 2006 and 2008, but it is also true that the government has to match any EU funds it uses.
The EU is spending vast sums on developments in the new member states, and these sums must be used - but it is the national governments that will decide which developments to promote. Why should we think that they are making the right choices?
ISTVÁN KEMÉNY
(The author is a sociologist)
First the young, then the old
The government is citing constitutional concerns as a reason for slowing down the downsizing of the ministries. There is as yet no estimate of the total cost of the redundancies.
Ombudsmen leaving the paper
Majtenyi and Miklosi, the ombudsmen responsible for upholding the independence of Magyar Hirlap, are leaving the paper. The move may be the result of the owner's anger at a ruling they issued, which has been published in the literary weekly Elet es Irodalom.
Portrait of Peter Radnai
© Fazekas IstvánWhat would you think if you were just a simple newspaper reader and you saw a an interview with the...
Storm in Budapest
A storm in Budapest has claimed three lives, including that of a twelve-year-old girl, and some 200 casualties. At least 240 people were injured, and two were washed away by the Danube. Gabor Demszky, the mayor of Budapest, has called for an inquiry. The National Meterological Service had correctly forecast that the storm would reach the capital just when the fireworks began.
Grass and Istvan Szabo
Gunther Grass's shocking confessions about his past have recent parallels in Hungary. Grass donned a black uniform. Szabo wrote reports on his friends and classmates. But both come out of their scandals rather well. Istvan Szabo did not become less popular as a result of his informant past. Grass's sudden burst of honesty can have done little harm to sales of his recently published autobiography.
Portrait of a political citizen
Karoly Rassay was one of the most honourable of Hungarian civic politicians. He rejected both communist dictatorship and the Horthy regime. He stood for a democratic state, for liberalism and for civil liberties. He was rewarded with Mauthausen, deportation and a bitter old age.
