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Budapest Times
11-07-2025
- Business
- Budapest Times
Home Start to help young Hungarians purchase their own home
State Secretary Miklós Panyi said the Home Start Programme, a recently announced scheme offering subsidised credit to first-time home buyers, could help tens of thousands of young Hungarians purchase their own home. From September, the government will offer first-time home buyers loans of up to HUF 50m with fixed rates of 3pc. The loans will be available to first-time home buyers regardless of age or family status. After talks with the Hungarian Banking Association on Tuesday, Panyi said the banking association was involved with the drafting of the scheme, but there were still more details that needed to be hammered out. Work on fleshing out the rules for the credit is underway, he added. Anna Florova, who heads the banking association's retail lending working group, noted that subsidised credit accounted for 20-25pc of home loans at present. She said that commercial banks were eager to participate in the Home Start Programme and were getting ready for the scheme's launch on September 1. Panyi said instalments on Home Start loans could be even lower than monthly rents.
Budapest Times
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Budapest Times
Kocsis: MPs won't hold vote on transparency law before the summer
Máté Kocsis, the Fidesz parliamentary group leader, said the transparency law will not be included on the legislative committee's agenda and MPs will not hold a vote on it before the summer. Kocsis told news portal Index on Wednesday that Fidesz was united behind making use of a law to protect sovereignty, but a debate was underway about what form the relevant legislation should take. A debate on the transparency law will be postponed until the autumn, and professional organisations will be consulted on its contents in the meantime, he added. Besides proposals from Fidesz MPs, the Hungarian Banking Association, the Hungarian Advertising Association, the presidential Sándor Palace, the Hungarian Bar Association and the Hungarian Newspaper Publishers Association have stated their views too, he added. Fidesz believes at the same time, that professional organisations such as organisations financed from abroad, 'pseudo-civil groups' and media actors that would fall under the scope of the law would not have a say in the drafting of the legislation, he said. They had generally sent 'ad hominem criticisms' rather than constructive suggestions, he said, and these 'cannot be taken into account in the legislative process'. Kocsis referred to the 'Ukrainian espionage case', saying it was 'a good example of why sovereignty must be protected'. He insisted that 'Ukrainian propaganda' was based on 'fake recordings' that had led to the false impression that Hungary was readying itself 'for military aggression against Ukraine'. Far from being the case, the case 'highlights that disinformation campaigns are indeed taking place' against Hungary, Kocsis added. Such disinformation, he added, did not just appear from abroad but in certain parts of the Hungarian press too. The Fidesz politician said that whereas protecting sovereignty was a decisive issue in the long term, it was important to clarify what means could be used to combat it. Disinformation campaigns related to the Russia-Ukraine war and other matters related to sovereignty protection would probably end up being handled separately, he said. Fidesz MP János Halász submitted the bill on the Transparency of Public Life to parliament in mid-May, and it would open up the possibility of blacklisting organisations financed from abroad that threaten Hungary's sovereignty.
