FactualWith two months of elections which promise to be close, the nationalist leader is stepping up his actions in favor of purchasing power.
The poster must be posted since Tuesday 1er February in front of the door of all supermarkets and even in the smallest grocery stores in the depths of Hungary: ” Dear clients ! The government has decided to introduce a freeze on the prices of basic foodstuffs,” she proclaims on a blue background, the usual color of official propaganda in Hungary. “The prices of the products concerned must be set so as not to exceed those of October 15, 2021”, details the text before listing six basic foodstuffs: icing sugar, wheat flour, sunflower oil, 2.8% milk, pork belly, breast and chicken carcass.
In this Spar supermarket in Budapest, Tuesday morning, the effect is immediate: “Our chicken breast costs 300 forints (0.85 euros) less than yesterday,” boasts the saleswoman in the butcher’s department behind a mountain of Romanian chicken breasts sold at 4.20 euros per kilo. “With the difference, we can afford a carcass for the soup”, she adds, hinting that this could push her to vote for nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the April 3 legislative elections. Especially since it has also just benefited from the sharp rise in the minimum wage decided in January.
With two months of legislative elections which promise to be the tightest for him since 2010, Mr. Orban is visibly ready to multiply the gifts to counter a united opposition which accuses him of not having sufficiently improved the standard of living of Hungarians during his twelve years in power. While these were marked by a general rise in wages, it remains less marked than in other Central European countries. In February, for example, pensioners will touch for the first time a 13and months of pension and young people under 25 will be completely exempt from tax in 2022.
Price freeze
But that was not enough in the face of galloping inflation which reached 7.4% in December 2021 over one year, one of the highest rates in Europe. Some basic products such as oil, flour or margarine have even increased by more than 20%. “An exceptional situation” according to Mr. Orban, who defended the price freeze, an extremely rare measure in the European Union, considering “that the government could not sit back and wait for market players to adjust prices”. Scheduled to last until 1er May, a few weeks after the election, the blocking of food prices is added to that of petrol at 480 forints per liter (1.35 euro), already in force since 15 November.
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