Calculated: Peter Magyar’s Party Preparing a Brutal Austerity Package

The Tisza Party may be preparing for the largest austerity package in history, pulling half a million forints out of every Hungarian’s pocket. Altogether this could reach 6,000 billion forints, more than 6 percent of GDP, if the Tisza Party wins the 2026 elections.

Photo: Balazs Hatlaczki

Mandiner also pointed out that in its regular country reports, the European Commission has consistently called on the government to reduce benefits, including utility cost cuts and tax breaks, so that they are only available to low-income earners and not tied to employment. On VAT reductions, the article noted that while the Tisza Party initially promised a general VAT cut, now its president is only proposing lower VAT on certain products. These include “healthy foods,” specifically mentioning vegetables and fruits, as well as reduced VAT on firewood, but this could hardly compensate for the end of the current utility cost cuts scheme. 

The party’s pledge of a 200,000-forint Szep card for pensioners would also mean significant extra expenditure and would be highly contradictory unless it replaced the 13th-month pension.

The current government gradually reintroduced the 13th-month pension after 2020, providing the elderly with a full month’s benefit in cash. With the Szep card option, the Tisza Party would limit how seniors could spend their money.

As in earlier left-wing programs, the opposition party would also vet wealthy individuals and impose a one-percent wealth tax on assets above five billion forints. However, while in principle such a tax may appear fair to the majority,

experience shows it has not delivered the expected results 

and in fact harmed economies, leading to its phase-out across much of Western Europe where it had been introduced.