Orbán spokesman reiterates Hungary’s refusal to let IMF “dictate” measures; hits again at Central Bank head Simor

Hungary has no need for a stand-by credit agreement with the International Monetary Fund, the prime minister’s spokesman said in an interview to public television on Monday.

Peter Szijjarto told M1 that Hungary was financing itself from the market and could stand on its own two feet.

He dismissed a call by the Democratic Coalition party, headed by ex-premier Ferenc Gyurcsany, to negotiate an IMF agreement. “There’s no need,” he said.

Szijjarto said the debate on the matter had already taken place last year.

“We didn’t want any kind of international financial organisation dictating measures to the Hungarian government and forcing austerity on the Hungarian government,” he said.

Instead, the government decided on a credible and transparent economic policy, and Hungary has shown it is capable of financing itself from the market, he added.

He said for the first time since 2004 Hungary will have been able to get the deficit down to below 3 percent of gross domestic product. He said from among European Union countries, only Sweden and Hungary had been capable of pushing down their public debts.

Szijjarto insisted that the government would stick to the economic policy that it has pursued to date.

On the topic of the financial affairs of Andras Simor, the central bank’s governor, Szijjarto, who is also the head of parliament’s accounts and budget committee, said the body had in October asked Simor to provide documents relating to his private dealings involving his former Cyprus-based company. Szijjarto said it was “strange” that the governor had not been forthcoming.

He said it was the right of the Hungarian people to know about the issue, and the committee had asked the Speaker of Parliament to take action.

The spokesman added, however, that the National Bank of Hungary must enjoy “total independence” when it came to setting monetary policy, and the issue of Simor’s financial affairs was not connected with the bank’s policymaking.