Fidesz Proposes Fiscal Savings by Cutting Funding for Parliamentary Groups, Including Their Own

The governing Fidesz and Christian Democrat parties are submitting a bill on cutting state funding by 3 billion forints (EUR 7.5m) for opposition parliamentary party groups, and by 2 billion forints for their own groups during the current parliamentary cycle, the Fidesz group leader said on Tuesday.

Máté Kocsis is proposing a change in the way parliamentary groups are financed. The Fidesz parliamentary group leader spoke about this at a background discussion on Tuesday, ATV reports.

Through the “trickery of sending six party groups to parliament,” the left-wing parties would cost much more in the forthcoming cycle than they did in the previous one, even though they lost 800,000 voters and ten seats after the April 3rd general election, Máté Kocsis said.

The left-wing parties’ demand for an extra 3 billion forints is “unfair” fails to reflect the voters’ will, and should not be supported from either the fiscal or the political points of view, he said.

Kocsis noted that the monthly state funding for a pro-government MP amounted to 2.2 million forints, and 3.1 million forints for an opposition MP in the previous cycle. If the system were left unchanged, he said, the monthly funding would increase to 2.6 million forints and 4.5 million forints, respectively. As a consequence, the parliamentary groups would cost the taxpayers 6 billion forints more in four years than in the previous cycle, he argued.

The governing parties will table the bill next Tuesday. Once approved, the new rates will take effect on January 1st next year, according to Kocsis.

Featured photo by Noémi Bruzák/MTI