Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office János Lázár and Minister of State for Government Communication András Giró-Szász have announced that from 26 March, regular press conferences will be held on Thursdays following cabinet meetings; in these press conferences the public will be informed of the Government’s decisions.
Mr Giró-Szász explained that the Government sees it as being of the utmost importance that citizens and the press receive appropriate information on decisions made by the Government, and so from this week onwards a press conference will be held on the Thursday following that week’s cabinet meeting.
Minister Lázár informed members of the press that the Government is dealing with four priority topics this week.
The first one is that the Government will sign cooperation agreements with 23 county-level municipalities in the coming period. He said that the key to rural development is the development of provincial cities, and therefore the Government has established the Modern Cities programme; the first cooperation agreement to be concluded within this has been with Sopron.
Talking about the extension of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant, the Minister said that since all negotiations with the Russian party have been concluded and Parliament has passed all necessary legislation, the Government has also started negotiations with the European Commission.
The fuel supply contract for the two new blocks will be finalised on the basis of the Finnish model, and an agreement may be reached soon. There are, however, two further areas that need to be discussed with the Commission: competition law and public procurement.
The third priority topic is that on 1 March an era came to an end: the Government has succeeded in significantly restructuring the welfare benefits system. Mr Lázár stressed that everyone can count on the Government, and the system is working reliably.
Concerning the so-called “brokerage scandal”, the Minister explained that it has clearly been proven that brokers deceived people, and for this they must bear the consequences. The main objective of the Government is to help those who have lost money.