The opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) has called for amending Hungary’s 2020 budget to increase spending on education, health care and pensions.
The Fidesz government has “boasted” about increasing spending on these areas since it came to power in 2010, the deputy group leader of the leftist party told a press conference.
“But facts speak for themselves,” Gergely Arató said, noting that allocations in the central budget for welfare have dropped to 25 percent from 31 percent over the past nine years.
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Ruling Fidesz said in response that under the governments of current DK leader Ferenc Gyurcsány Hungary had been pushed into debt and money “had been continually withdrawn from families, health care, education and old people in order to fill holes in the budget–and their own pockets”.
The current government has increased support to families with children by 2.5-fold since 2010, spending 770 billion forints (EUR 2.36bn) more on health care, 645 billion forints more on education and 833 billion forints more on pensions than its left-wing predecessor did in 2010, Fidesz said.
Featured photo by Zoltán Balogh/MTI.