The Bajnai government has already spent about half of the budget reserves available to it in the first half of the year.

The 2010 budget contains 57.3 billion forints (EUR 214.44m) of general reserves, of which the government may spend 40 percent - about 22.9 billion forints - in the first half of the year, business daily Napi Gazdasag said on Tuesday.

The Bajnai government called down about 10 billion forints of the reserves when it renationalised airline Malev at the end of February. It has also taken out 800 million forints for flood defense, 500 million to raise the social ministry's crisis fund, 41 million to pay for depositors' losses at failed savings and loan Altalanos Kozlekedesi Hitelszovetkezet above the amount covered by the National Deposit Insurance Fund, and more than 50 million for purses to be presented with Szechenyi and Kossuth prizes on the March 15 national holiday, the paper said.