Hungary

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary’s economic contraction this year is likely to be deeper than the government’s projection last month for 3% and the current budget deficit goal of 3% per GDP is “not carved in stone”, Finance Minister Mihaly Varga told Reuters on Friday.

Varga said the government will revise its GDP and deficit projections at the end of April as the coronavirus pandemic is taking a bigger than expected economic toll on the Central European country.

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary is preparing to announce a roughly $30 billion package of measures to help jump-start the economy, a top government official said on Saturday, as the coronavirus outbreak shutters factories and raises the specter of recession.

Parliament, where the ruling Fidesz party has a strong majority, has granted Prime Minister Viktor Orban the right to rule by decree to fight the coronavirus, ignoring calls by opponents and rights groups to put a timeframe on the extra powers.

30 March 2020; AFP: Hungary's parliament was expected to endorse a bill on Monday giving nationalist premier Viktor Orban sweeping new powers he says he needs to fight the new coronavirus pandemic.

Critics at home and abroad have condemned the "anti-coronavirus defence law", saying it gives Orban unnecessary and unlimited power in a ruse to cement his leadership rather than battle the virus.

BUDAPEST, March 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Hungary’s parliament was on Monday expected to endorse a bill giving nationalist premier Viktor Orban sweeping new powers he says he needs to fight the new coronavirus pandemic.

Critics at home and abroad have condemned the “anti-coronavirus defence law”, saying it gives Orban unnecessary and unlimited power in a ruse to cement his leadership rather than battle the virus.

Orban’s government proposed the bill to parliament earlier this month to enable wide rule-by-decree powers to tackle the virus under an extended state of emergency.

BUDAPEST, March 28 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Hungary is imposing a two-week lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus epidemic, which is expected to peak in the country in June or July, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said.

Citizens will be allowed to go to work, shop and take limited exercise outside during the lockdown, which starts on Saturday, but should keep distance from each other, Orban said on public radio, adding that restrictions would be enforced by police.

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary will deploy special military task forces to monitor the operations of 140 state companies providing critical services during the coronavirus pandemic, Defence Minister Tibor Benko said late on Wednesday.

The newly created task forces, consisting of several soldiers, police officers and disaster unit workers, will provide regular briefings on the companies to the defense ministry, Benko told public television.

BUDAPEST, March 10 (Xinhua) -- At a forum organized by the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MKIK), Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Tuesday pledged government assistance to economic players who suffer losses due to the novel coronavirus.

"An economic protection action plan is needed," Orban said, adding that he had asked the MKIK to collect feedback from business leaders on the difficulties the different industrial sectors expect to face and the ways to address them.

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Wednesday that 130,000 migrants had already passed the Turkish-Greek border in the Balkans, and that they must be stopped as far south as possible.

“It won’t be enough to defend the Greek-Turkish border,” Orban told a news conference of the leaders of the Visegrad Four countries of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic. “As a last resort ... we will defend Europe’s external border.”

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - More than 2,000 Hungarians, including Roma families and civil groups, marched to parliament on Sunday to protest against the government’s refusal to pay compensation to Roma children who had been unlawfully segregated in a school in eastern Hungary.

Nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has come under fire from the European Union for his perceived erosion of the rule of law, suggested the state should disobey court orders to pay compensation to Roma children in the village of Gyongyospata and provide training instead.

BUDAPEST, Feb. 16 (Xinhua) -- Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Sunday announced a new climate action plan and spoke about future challenges in his annual state-of-the-nation speech.

"The government has adopted a climate action plan this week. On July 1, illegal landfills will be eradicated and polluters will be punished. Disposable plastics are banned, allowing metal and glass bottles to be reused. We will protect the Danube and the Tisza rivers from pollution," Orban said.