Hungary’s new prime minister has accused Viktor Orbán’s former government of hiding a budget deficit that would have topped 8 per cent of GDP this year — more than double the declared target.
Péter Magyar said on Monday that Orbán’s public deficit targets for 2026 — first 3.7 per cent of GDP, then 5 per cent — bore little relation to the figures found by his government since taking office six weeks ago. Orbán’s own officials had assumed a 6.8 per cent shortfall, Magyar said, while new audits showed the deficit would have exceeded 8 per cent without a recent deal unlocking frozen EU funds.
“They lied to Hungarians,” Magyar said in a Facebook video. “The budget deficit figures that the Orbán government publicly claimed, those contained in official documents, and what we are now seeing bear no resemblance to one another.”