After a Committee meeting of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that repaying the IMF-EU loan is an unprecedented achievement, which could not have been accomplished without friends like the OECD.
On Thursday the Prime Minister held talks with Secretary-General of the OECD Ángel Gurría, after which he gave a speech at a committee meeting of the organisation.
In his statement to the press, Mr. Orbán stressed that having repaid the loan is a great result, the achievement of which demanded the efforts of many: Hungarian citizens, economic policy makers, workers and employers.
The Prime Minister stressed that “tonight, every family has a good reason to open a good bottle of red wine and drink to Hungary’s health: yesterday we succeeded in settling an old debt, which was created by previous governments in 2008, when – in order to avoid economic ruin – they took out a huge loan from the IMF and the EU”. This loan has been repaid, and so “today we had a better start to our day, and we breathe more freely”.
Mr. Orbán emphasised the importance of the role which friends like the OECD played in achieving these results. He said that one could always turn to the organisation, even with the most difficult and most sensitive questions, as the OECD always provided Hungary with its knowledge and the best practices it had collected, purely based on technical aspects and without any political intentions. Therefore “Hungary’s successes also include the work of the OECD”, he added.
The Prime Minister said that this is the reason Hungary is and will remain a member of the OECD, and why it will cooperate with it and count on its advice when working on important issues – such as vocational training, education, increasing economic efficiency and health care.
In his statement, Secretary-General of the OECD Ángel Gurría praised Hungary’s recent successes, and said that the country’s experiences must be shared with other states as well. He said that Hungary’s results are a success story, and at the same time he pointed out that Hungary has been cooperating with the OECD for twenty years. This anniversary is only the beginning of their joint work, Mr. Gurría added, noting that he will soon visit Budapest.
The Secretary-General praised the close cooperation between the OECD and Hungary, and said that his talks with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán were successful. He said that they discussed all fields of cooperation, from small and medium-sized companies to education and economic issues, and that Hungary’s successes in economic and social issues formed part of what Mr. Orbán talked about.