Government agrees on subsidy cuts

Education Minister István Hiller will announce the second wave of education reforms on June 27 after which the related bills will be filed to Parliament, Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány announced on Saturday.

Speaking after the two-day government meeting at the Lake Balaton resort of Balatonöszöd, Gyurcsány said: "Everything has a value, thus also a price, it is not the task of the state to give subsidies without objectives."

On June 28 the new gas price compensation scheme will be announced, and on July 1 and 2, reform of long distance public transport will be announced, chiefly for the cutting of present subsidies. Health care reform will be announced by the end of July.

The government will decide on introduction of a doctor-visiting fee by the end of August at the latest, and about the instigation of a multi-insurer system in health care by the end of the year. Hospitals will be almost entirely limited to receiving patients from their service area, as of July 1. Nationwide health institutes will be integrated into university hospitals, while hospitals without sufficient experts will be closed.

Gyurcsány plans that the budget deficit will fall to around 3% of GDP in 2008, while inflation would be 3% in 2008 after a short-term peak of 4-5% in 2007. The government will set a strict spending limit on the budgets of ministries, who will in turn make quarterly reports on those limits.

The above story is just one of more than two dozen published today by Hungary Around the Clock, the most comprehensive source of daily English-language news about Hungary. For a free trial of HATC, click here. Hungarian news sources include Népszabadság; Magyar Hírlap; Világgazdaság; Napi Gazdaság; Magyar Nemzet; Népszava; Kossuth Rádió news and Hungarian television's nightly news broadcast.

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