Orbán cab­i­net urges ‘rea­son­able bal­ance’ in exit from lockdown

For­eign Min­is­ter Peter Szi­jjártó on Mon­day under­lined the impor­tance of main­tain­ing a “rea­son­able bal­ance” between safe­guard­ing human life, restart­ing the econ­o­my and “return­ing to nor­mal­cy” in Hungary’s emer­gence from lock­down. Mea­sures intro­duced by the gov­ern­ment over the past few days are aimed at prepar­ing the health-care sys­tem “for an unprece­dent­ed sit­u­a­tion”, giv­ing the econ­o­my a head start in the new era of the glob­al econ­o­my and repa­tri­at­ing Hun­gar­i­ans strand­ed abroad due to trav­el restric­tions, Szi­jjártó said in an address to parliament. 

The for­eign min­istry has so far helped bring more than 10,000 Hun­gar­i­ans home, with 541 more strand­ed abroad, Szi­jjártó said. The Euro­pean Union has been noti­fied of all flights that have repa­tri­at­ed Hun­gar­i­ans and oth­er EU cit­i­zens, but Hun­gary has received no response or sup­port from the bloc, he said. Con­cern­ing health acces­sories deliv­ered from Chi­na in the recent peri­od, Szi­jjártó said more than 130 planes have shipped equip­ment to Hun­gary so far. Hun­gary has so far tak­en deliv­ery of more than 132 mil­lion face masks and is con­tract­ed to receive 40.4 mil­lion more, the min­is­ter said. Chi­na has deliv­ered 3,298 ven­ti­la­tors, 1,351 of which arrived last week. Ful­ly 2.37 mil­lion coro­n­avirus test­ing kits have been deliv­ered with 1.17 mil­lion more on the way. Hun­gary has also tak­en deliv­ery of over 68 mil­lion items of pro­tec­tive gear, he said. Read also Restric­tions in Budapest to be lift­ed from mid­night on Sun­day – DETAILS Chi­na has also sent 850,000 pills that have shown to be a promis­ing treat­ment option for Covid-19 patients, he said, adding that Japan has also agreed to deliv­er more than 12,000 pills. Hun­gary has also received help from oth­er coun­tries and has itself pro­vid­ed help to the Hun­gar­i­an com­mu­ni­ties beyond the bor­der, neigh­bour­ing coun­tries and the west­ern Balkan coun­tries, he said. As regards eco­nom­ic mea­sures, Szi­jjártó not­ed that the gov­ern­ment has approved a scheme to sup­port the invest­ments of busi­ness­es oper­at­ing in Hun­gary with grants worth up to 800,000 euros. So far 526 com­pa­nies have applied for the scheme, under­tak­ing invest­ments worth a total of 254 bil­lion forints (EUR 717.5m) to pre­serve 93,650 jobs, the min­is­ter added. The gov­ern­ment has since dou­bled the fund­ing avail­able for the scheme to 100 bil­lion forints, he said. Talks are ongo­ing with the EU on scrap­ping the lim­it for the amount of fund­ing one com­pa­ny can receive, Szi­jjártó said, adding that the EU is expect­ed to make a deci­sion at the end of the month. Hun­gary in the recent peri­od also had to deal with “out­right lies” regard­ing its law in response to the epi­dem­ic, the min­is­ter said. These includ­ed claims about the alleged sus­pen­sion of par­lia­ment and “sly Nazi-bait­ing”, he said. Now that par­lia­ment can start prepar­ing to end the state of emer­gency through leg­is­la­tion, “all those who lied that the oppo­site would be the case should apol­o­gise,” Szi­jjártó said. “Although this will nev­er hap­pen, it’s enough that they got caught in their lies.”

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