Hungary’s government will “leave nobody on the side of the road”, it will protect borrowers with home loans from the crisis in the eurozone, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in a video message posted on his Facebook page.
The Prime Minister said the country is in a very important period, during which “it is more important than at any other time that we stand up for each other, that we stand together for Hungary.” The first “wave of the euro crisis” has reached Hungary, and there will be more, because the waves the crisis sends again and again do not stop at the country’s borders, he added.
Orban said “hundreds of thousands, or about a million” Hungarians with foreign currency-denominated mortgages were in danger of loosing the roof over their heads.
He stressed the importance to Hungarians of having their own home, of making a secure nest for their family, and said they were ready to work more for this.
“Owning one’s own home and a free life: these can only be had together. That is why we have to offer assistance to borrowers with foreign currency-denominated loans,” Orban said. He added that more and more measures would be taken to put everybody on their feet and keep them there, so nobody looses the roof over their head and the heads of their family.
Orban said “gripping, hard times are ahead of us” and that the autumn session of parliament would have “exciting and important debates and decisions”.
The Prime Minister asked Hungarians for their support to successfully carry out these debates so Hungary could go through a period of renewal this autumn and not come out of the crisis weaker, but stronger.
Fidesz MP Antal Rogan on Friday submitted to Parliament a bill that would give Hungarian borrowers the option to repay early their foreign currency-denominated mortgages at a fixed exchange rate discounted from the market rate.