Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban framed the European elections as a choice between Brussels bureaucrats under the sway of 'money men' and sovereign nation states defending 'tradition' and 'Christianity'

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Budapest (AFP)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban launched his European elections campaign Sunday calling for voters to defend "Christian" nations against immigration, which he said led to the "virus of terrorism".

He also announced a seven-point package of tax breaks and subsidies to encourage families to raise more children, a move he called "Hungary's answer" to its falling population instead of increasing immigration.

May's elections for the European Parliament were a "historic crossroads" for Europe, said Orban, in this year's state of the nation speech in Budapest before an invited audience.

He framed the vote as a choice between the "new internationalism" of pro-migration Brussels bureaucrats under the sway of "money men" such as liberal US billionaire George Soros and sovereign nation states defending tradition and Christianity.

And he warned against voting for pro-immigration parties.

Those who "decide for immigration and migrants for whatever reason in reality are creating mixed-race nations", he said.

Referring several times to Hungary's abandoning of communism in 1989, he said Hungarians were again confronted with "those who would wipe out our traditions and nation states".

He added: "Historic traditions in immigrant countries come to an end,...in such countries Christian-Muslim worlds are created with continually shrinking Christian proportions."

Orban, who has emerged as a self-styled "illiberal" figurehead for nationalist politicians in Europe, added that "immigration brings increased crime, especially crimes against women, and lets in the virus of terrorism".

Announcing his seven-point programme, Orban ruled out any move to tackle Europe's declining birth numbers with higher immigration as "capitulation".

"We don't just want numbers, we want Hungarian babies," he said, after declaring that women bearing four or more children would be exempt for life from personal income tax.

Hungary's population has fallen below 10 million in recent years and has one of the lowest fertility rates in the OECD. An estimated half-million Hungarians meanwhile have emigrated to western Europe since it joined the EU in 2004.

© 2019 AFP</s>BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced new tax and loan benefits for families on Sunday as part of his government’s efforts to increase the birth rate while holding a hard line against immigration.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban leaves the stage after delivering his annual state of the nation speech in Budapest, Hungary, February 10, 2019. REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo

Orban, one of the most outspoken critics of mass immigration to Europe from the Middle East and Asia, added that he aimed to keep economic growth 2 percentage points over the European Union average in the next years despite an expected global slowdown.

There was no immediate government estimate for the cost of the new measures. Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, said on Friday that new spending would be financed from general reserves or surplus revenues in the 2019 budget.

Orban’s ruling Fidesz party faces European Parliament and local government elections this year after a string of protests in recent months against the 55-year-old premier’s rule, although the party still leads in opinion polls.

The rallies were sparked by the passage of laws in December allowing employers to ask for up to 400 hours of overtime per year, and the creation of new administrative courts that will answer to the government and oversee sensitive issues.

As Orban gave his annual state of the nation speech on Sunday, several hundred protesters gathered outside the Presidential Palace in Buda Castle, while about a hundred demonstrators blocked a nearby bridge over the Danube river.

“There are fewer and fewer children born in Europe. For the West, the answer (to that challenge) is immigration. For every missing child there should be one coming in and then the numbers will be fine,” Orban said.

“But we do not need numbers. We need Hungarian children,” he said, announcing the incentives program.

The new measures include the expansion of a loan program for families with at least two children to help them buy homes, subsidies for car purchases and waiving personal income tax for women raising at least four children.

Women below 40 who marry for the first time will be eligible for a 10 million forint ($36,000) subsidized loan, Orban said. A third of the debt will be forgiven when a second child is born and the entire loan waived after the third child.

The 2019 budget targets a deficit worth 1.8 percent of economic output. In January, it posted a 244.5 billion forint surplus, the highest in two decades, data showed.

Zoltan Torok, an analyst at the Hungarian unit of Raiffeisen Bank, said that on first glance the measures could cost several tens of billions of forints, but they were unlikely to produce any drastic increase in the budget deficit.

Despite the street protests, Orban’s Fidesz party remains well ahead of its opposition rivals, according to the latest opinion polls.

The think tank Nezopont put support for Fidesz at 39 percent of all voters in January, largely in line with a 38-percent reading by the pollster Median.

While Nezopont said the fallout of Orban’s December reforms had no impact on support for Fidesz, the Median survey said Fidesz had lost over half a million supporters since October.</s>Hungary’s populist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has promised that women who have four or more children will never pay income tax again, in a move aimed at boosting the country’s population.

Orbán, who has emerged as Europe’s loudest rightwing, anti-immigration voice in recent years, said getting Hungarian families to have more children was preferable to allowing immigrants from Muslim countries to enter.

“In all of Europe there are fewer and fewer children, and the answer of the west to this is migration,” said Orbán in his annual state of the nation address on Sunday. “They want as many migrants to enter as there are missing kids, so that the numbers will add up. We Hungarians have a different way of thinking. Instead of just numbers, we want Hungarian children. Migration for us is surrender.”

Orbán’s Fidesz party won a third consecutive electoral victory last year on an anti-migration platform, and the Hungarian prime minister rarely gives a speech without presenting the upcoming years as a do-or-die battle for the future of Europe. He has voiced a hope that after elections in May, all European institutions will be controlled by “anti-migration forces”.

He has repeatedly claimed that the Hungarian-born American financier and philanthropist George Soros, a favoured target of the far right across the globe, is masterminding a conspiracy to destroy Europe by promoting mass migration.

“The people of Europe have come to a historic crossroads,” Orbán said on Sunday, criticising the “mixed population countries” that result from allowing migration. The process was moving so quickly, he said, that the transformation of previously Christian countries into those where Christians were a minority would happen in his lifetime. “There is no return ticket,” he said.

Demographic decline is a problem in many societies in central and eastern Europe, with millions of people leaving countries such as Hungary, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria in the years after their accession to the EU for higher salaries in western Europe. This, combined with low birth rates, has contributed to shrinking populations and fuelled fears of dying communities across the region.

Instead of looking to migration to solve the labour shortages and population decline, populist governments have rejected this option. Orbán built a wall along the country’s southern border to keep migrants out during the 2015 refugee crisis, and government-controlled media frequently links migration to moral decline and terrorism in western Europe.

As the prime minister spoke, anti-Orbán protesters gathered in Budapest for the latest in a series of rallies against the government which began in December after parliament passed a “slave law” allowing employers to demand more overtime from workers. The law is seen as another result of the demographic problems in the country, as a labour shortage means jobs cannot be filled. The political opposition to Orbán is divided, however, and the protest momentum appears to have diminished.

Orbán has declared the main focus of his current term in office to be the demographic situation, and his government launched a “public consultation” last year, mailing questionnaires with a number of leading questions about migration and family policy to every Hungarian household.

On Sunday, he announced a number of measures to support larger families in addition to the lifetime income tax break for women with more than four children. He also promised favourable mortgage terms for families with multiple children, support for families with three or more children to buy a car, and increased funding for daycare centres and kindergartens.</s>BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban announced on Sunday a raft of new tax and loan benefits for families as part of efforts by his government to increase the birth rate while holding a hard line against immigration.

Orban, one of the most outspoken critics of mass immigration to Europe from the Middle East and Asia, also said that his government aimed to keep economic growth 2 percent above the European Union average in the coming years despite an expected global slowdown.

“There are fewer and fewer children born in Europe. For the West, the answer (to that challenge) is immigration. For every missing child there should be one coming in and then the numbers will be fine,” he said in his annual state of the nation speech.

“But we do not need numbers. We need Hungarian children,” Orban said, announcing a seven-point program of benefits for families and newly-weds.

The new measures include the expansion of a loan program for families with at least two children to help them buy homes, subsidies for car purchases and waiving personal income tax for women raising at least four children.

Women below 40 who marry for the first time will be eligible for a 10 million forint ($36,000) subsidized loan, Orban said. A third of the debt will be forgiven when a second child is born and the entire loan waived after the third child.

“This is the answer for Hungarians, not immigration,” Orban said.</s>Budapest: Hungary's anti-immigration Prime Minister said the government would increase financial aid and subsidies for families in a bid to boost the country's population.

The measures announced during Prime Minister Viktor Orban's annual state of the nation speech are designed to encourage women to have more children and to reverse Hungary's population decline.

They include a lifetime income tax exemption for women who give birth to at least four children.

Orban said such policies – and not immigrtaion – were "Hungary's answer" to downward demographic trends</s>BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary's anti-immigration prime minister says the government is greatly increasing financial aid and subsidies for families with several children.

The measures announced Sunday by Prime Minister Viktor Orban during his "state of the nation" speech are meant to encourage women to have more children and to reverse Hungary's population decline.

They include a lifetime income tax exemption for women who give birth to at least four children.

Orban said such policies are "Hungary's answer" to downward demographic trends, "not immigration."

Orban repeated his assertion that European Union leaders in Brussels want to fill Europe with migrants from other continents.

With European Parliament elections set for May, he said that unchecked immigration would create "mixed populations" in countries that Muslims eventually would dominate and Christians quickly would become a minority.</s>Mothers with four children will be exempt from income tax and will receive £7,000 towards the cost of a new car in an attempt by Hungary to boost its birth rate.

The country's prime minister Viktor Orban announced the measures during his annual state of the nation address yesterday.

He said the new financial aid is to encourage women to have more children and reverse Hungary's shrinking population.

The benefits include a lifetime personal income tax exemption for women who give birth and raise at least four children.

A subsidy of 2.5 million forints (£6,821) will also be available towards the purchase of a seven-seat vehicle for families with three or more children.

The country will also offer a low-interest loan of 10 million forints (£27,286) for women under the age of 40 who are marrying for the first time.

Mr Orban, who was elected for a third consecutive term in April, said the initiative is meant to 'ensure the survival of the Hungarian nation'.

'This is the Hungarians' answer, not immigration,' Mr Orban said.

The prime minister also listed some of his government's economic achievements, such as low unemployment, and vowed to fight poverty in the speech.

He then turned his attention to May's European Parliament elections, repeating his accusation that the leadership of the European Union wants to fill the continent with migrants.

'We have to understand that the European peoples have come to a historical crossroads,' Mr Orban said.

'Those who decide in favour of immigration and migrants, no matter why they do so, are in fact creating a country with a mixed population.'

Europe's left-wing has become 'the gravedigger of nations, the family and the Christian way of life', Mr Orban said.

After his speech, several hundred members and supporters of Hungary's main opposition parties held an anti-Orban rally in Buda Castle.

The event was a protest against heavy fines the state audit office had recently imposed on several opposition parties.

A small group of protesters used their cars to block traffic from crossing the Chain Bridge over the Danube River for most of the day.

Opposition leaders said the fines, which cannot be challenged in Hungarian courts, were politically motivated and meant to hinder their campaigns for the European Parliament and municipal elections later this year.</s>Hungary's anti-immigration prime minister announced on Sunday that the government would offer financial aid and subsidies for families to boost the birth rate.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in his annual State of the Nation speech that the policy was "Hungary's answer" to population decline, "not immigration."

Read more: Is Viktor Orban the EU's hard-line hero or villain?

"There are fewer and fewer children born in Europe. For the West, the answer (to that challenge) is immigration. For every missing child there should be one coming in and then the numbers will be fine," he said.

"But we do not need numbers. We need Hungarian children," he added.

In 2016, Hungary's birth rate was 1.45 births per women, below the 2.1 replacement rate.

The seven-point program includes a loan of 10 million Forint (€31,352, $35,540) to women under 40 who marry for the first time. A third of the loan would be waived after a second child and the entire sum waived after a third child.

Read more: Hungary's Viktor Orban pushes for bloc to counter France and Germany

Another plank of the program would absolve any woman who has four or more children from paying income tax for life.

The new measures would also provide housing subsidies to families depending on the number of children they have and state support for the purchase of any seven-seat vehicle.

Orban also took aim at the European Union ahead of European Parliament elections in May and his nemesis, Hungarian-born American billionaire George Soros.

Read more: EU Parliament votes to trigger Article 7 sanctions procedure against Hungary

"Brussels is the stronghold of new internationalism, its tool is migration," he said.

Each evening at 1830 UTC, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here.</s>Hungarian women with four children or more will be exempted for life from paying income tax, the prime minister has said, unveiling plans designed to boost the number of babies being born.

It was a way of defending Hungary's future without depending on immigration, Viktor Orban said.

The right-wing nationalist particularly opposes immigration by Muslims.

Hungary's population is falling by 32,000 a year, and women there have fewer children than the EU average.

As part of the measures, young couples will be offered interest-free loans of 10 million forint ($36,000), to be cancelled once they have three children.

Mr Orban said that "for the West", the answer to falling birth rates in Europe was immigration: "For every missing child there should be one coming in and then the numbers will be fine.

"Hungarian people think differently," he said. "We do not need numbers. We need Hungarian children."

While Mr Orban was delivering his state of the nation address, the latest demonstrations were being held in Budapest against his government's policies.

About 2,000 people gathered in front of his office and others blocked one of the main bridges across the Danube river.
• Victor Orban: The man who thinks Europe has been invaded

Correspondents say the biggest applause during his speech was for his announcement of a seven-point plan to increase the fertility rate.

Other points in the government's plan include:
• A pledge to create 21,000 nursery places over the next three years
• An extra $2.5bn to be spent on the country's healthcare system

Mr Orban finished his speech with: "Long live Hungary and long live the Hungarians!"

The average number of children a Hungarian woman will have in her lifetime (fertility rate) is 1.45. This puts the country below the EU average of 1.58.
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• 'I’m not having children because I want to save the planet'

France has the highest fertility rate in the EU - 1.96 - and Spain the lowest at 1.33.

Niger in West Africa has the highest fertility rate in the world, with 7.24 children per woman.</s>Hungary’s government is greatly increasing financial aid and subsidies for families with several children, the country’s prime minister said Sunday.

The measures announced by Viktor Orban during his “state of the nation” speech are meant to encourage women to have more children and reverse Hungary’s population decline.

The benefits include a lifetime personal income-tax exemption for women who give birth and raise at least four children; a subsidy of 2.5 million forints ($8,825) toward the purchase a seven-seat vehicle for families with three or more children; and a low-interest loan of 10 million forints ($35,300) for women under age 40 who are marrying for the first time.

Orban, who has made “zero tolerance” for immigration his main theme in the past four years and was elected to a third consecutive term in April, said the initiative is meant to “ensure the survival of the Hungarian nation.”

“This is the Hungarians’ answer, not immigration,” Orban said.

The prime minister also listed some of his government’s economic achievements – such as low unemployment – and vowed to fight poverty.

Orban then turned his attention to May’s European Parliament elections, repeating his accusation that the leadership of the European Union wants to fill the continent with migrants, most of them Muslim.

“We have to understand that the European peoples have come to a historical crossroads,” Orban said. “Those who decide in favour of immigration and migrants, no matter why they do so, are in fact creating a country with a mixed population.”

Europe’s left-wing has become “the gravedigger of nations, the family and the Christian way of life,” Orban said.

After his speech, several hundred members and supporters of Hungary’s main opposition parties held an anti-Orban rally that started in Buda Castle. The event also was aimed at protesting recent heavy fines the state audit office imposed on several opposition parties. A small group of protesters used their cars to block traffic from crossing the Chain Bridge over the Danube River for most of the day.

Opposition leaders said the fines, which cannot be challenged in Hungarian courts, were politically motivated and meant to hinder their campaigns for the European Parliament and municipal elections in Hungary later this year.
Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announces new tax and loan benefits for families as part of his government’s efforts to increase the birth rate in Hungary. The new measures include the expansion of a loan program for families with at least two children and waiving personal income tax for women raising at least four children. Orbán is one of the most outspoken critics of immigration to Europe from the Middle East and Asia.