Hungary’s government has announced a new round of austerity measures aimed at raising the level of revenues flowing into government coffers. And with the EU now predicting that the country’s deficit could fall to 2.9 percent of GDP next year (0.1 percent below the EU’s deficit limit of 3 percent) it hopes to be able to avoid punitive measure from the EU. However, most of the new money is to come in the form of new taxes and charges, including one on the pipelines of privately held utilities, and a pornography tax on cable TV providers. The focus of these sorts of one-off measures are raising suspicion that the government continues to hope it can avoid pressure from the IMF and the EU to undertake structural reforms.
