The opposition Socialists are spreading “fake news” by suggesting that the government is not doing enough to access further funds from the European Union’s job protection scheme (SURE), the finance ministry said on Thursday.
The government is not in a position to apply for another one billion euros from the programme, as the Socialists suggest, because the funds are “only available for certain limited job protection measures and only retroactively”, the ministry said.
The ministry also noted that the government had supported the EU programme, and received the available maximum of 504 million euros in its first phase. They stressed that “it was not a grant from Brussels but a loan which must be repaid.”
Further, the government will consider “any opportunity to restart the Hungarian economy”, including applying for further loans from the SURE programme, the statement said, adding that the scheme was open to applications until the end of next year.
On March 6, Socialist MEP István Ujhelyi said it was not clear whether the government had applied for further funds or if it was planning to do so, and raised concern that the country could miss out on those monies.
In the featured photo: Socialist MEP István Ujhelyi. Photo by Lajos Soós/MTI
