The national consultation on the protection of families will start within days, the Parliamentary State Secretary of the Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister said on Sunday at a press conference held in Budapest.
Csaba Dömötör highlighted that with this consultation the government will be able to designate the foundations for future family support measures. “At the same time, we will be able to relay a powerful message: the message that Europe cannot be renewed without strengthening families”, Mr Dömötör stressed.
The Parliamentary State Secretary pointed out that if families are strong, forces supporting immigration and population replacement have less scope for manoeuvre. “They believe that the future of Europe lies in immigration. By contrast, we believe that strong families raising children are the future of Europe”, Mr Dömötör stressed.
He said the government decided to launch a consultation because the most important point in dispute between European politics and Hungarian politics is whether others can decide for us whom we should live together with.
“Brussels wants to decide this for us. Bureaucrats support immigration, among others in reference to the argument that it would solve population problems”, he said, highlighting that Hungary does not want immigration and does not want population replacement.
He reiterated that since 2010 the government has adopted a number of decisions with a view to strengthening families, and in 2019 as much as HUF 2,000 billion will be available for family support which is double the amount allocated in 2010. We would like Hungary to become a family-friendly country, he said.
Regarding details of the consultation, he said topics will most certainly feature possible measures for supporting the initial phases of the lives of young married couples, further incentives for raising more children, and the issue of the employment of women raising children.
In answer to questions, he said the consultations regarding the questionnaire will be concluded in the next few days, and the government will provide detailed information on the final version.
He said they are expecting expenditures in a magnitude similar to that of previous consultations. The final magnitude of expenditures will depend on the number of people who decide to take part.
They are planning to implement long-term measures on the basis of the consultation because they would not like to see a repeat of what happened after the term of the first civic government, namely that well-functioning housing and family support measures were done away with, the Parliamentary State Secretary stressed.
Mr Dömötör also said that even by European standards the national consultation is an exemplary initiative which has clearly come up to expectations. It would be good if other European countries, too, decided to avail themselves of this possibility because then there would not be such an enormous gap between governing forces and citizens, he observed.