Viktor Orban likes a crisis, so long as it lets him rule by decree
VIKTOR ORBAN, Hungary’s prime minister, enjoys almost complete control of his country’s political system. In elections on April 3rd his ruling coalition held on to its two-thirds share of the seats in parliament, a super-majority that allows it to change the constitution at will. His Fidesz party and its allies and cronies dominate the judiciary, and the country’s media are mostly controlled by friendly oligarchs. He hardly seems to need more power.
Political analysts were not surprised. “He does whatever he wants anyway, but it seems that the opportunity to rule by decree is something like a drug,” said Andras Biro-Nagy of Policy Solutions, a liberal think-tank in Budapest. Indeed, the government already enjoyed the same powers under a state of emergency imposed during the covid-19 crisis, due to expire on June 1st. Less far-reaching powers declared during the migrant crisis in 2016 remain in force.
On May 25th Mr Orban used his power of decree to announce a number of economic measures. One is a new fund to pay for government subsidies of consumer utility prices, a system, in place since 2012, that is among the government’s most popular policies, according to Mr Biro-Nagy, but has become increasingly costly since the start of the war. Hungary gets 85% of its gas and 65% of its oil from Russia.
The government had already imposed other inflation-fighting measures, including price controls on petrol and on several kinds of food. Higher taxes on corporations are a predictable way for Mr Orban’s government to address its growing budget deficit, says Daniel Prinz, a Hungarian economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a British research group. But it faces no immediate emergency. Year-on-year GDP growth in the first quarter of 2022 was 8.
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