Hungarian lawmakers on Wednesday passed amendments to the 2021 budget which now contains a deficit target of 7.5 percent (from 2.9 percent) of GDP based on European Union accounting rules and public debt of 79.9 percent of GDP.
Altogether 115 MPs voted in favor and 54 against.
When the 2021 budget was approved in July 2020, GDP had been expected to shrink by 3 percent before growing by 4.8 percent this year, but further waves of the pandemic caused Hungary’s economy to contract by 5 percent in 2020, and GDP is now expected to grow 4.3 percent in 2021.
Featured photo illustration by Zoltán Balogh/MTI