Small conservative party MDF is proposing the introduction of a constitutional limit on Hungary’s state debt, Lajos Bokros, MDF’s MEP and a former finance minister who authored an austerity package in the 1990s, said at a press conference in Budapest on Saturday.
MDF is proposing that Hungary’s state debt be limited to 60 percent of GDP from 2012, Bokros said. If the debt approaches the threshold, the budget in the following year would have to be balanced, that is, the country could not be a net borrower, he added.
The step would put an end to increased spending in the second half of every government cycle, Bokros said. Poland has had a 60 percent cap on state debt in its constitution for 15 years, he added.
Peter Szijjarto, spokesman for main opposition party Fidesz, said in a statement responding to the MDF proposal that Hungary does not need amendments to the constitution, but a Fidesz government. Between 1998 and 2002, the Fidesz government reduced Hungary’s state debt from around 60 percent of GDP to 53 percent, while the level rose to 80 percent under the Socialist-liberal government led by Ferenc Gyurcsany, he said.
“Hungary’s state debt be limited to 60 percent of
GDP from 2012, Bokros said”
And for Bokros’s next trick he will be holding back
the tide King Kanut style.
King Canute? Bokros is now sounding like Groucho Marx as well as looking like him.