Berlin: Announcing a raft of measures aimed at boosting the country’s declining birth rate and reducing immigration, Hungary’s prime minister has revealed a seven-point “Family Protection Action Plan” designed to promote marriage and families. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban made the announcement on Sunday while delivering his annual State of the Nation address.
Personal income tax for women raising at least four children will be waived for the rest of their lives and subsidies will be given for large families to buy larger cars. He also announced a loan program to help families with at least two children to buy homes. Women under 40 will be eligible for a preferential loan when she first gets married.
Orban also wood grandparents to take care of their grandchildren by announcing that grandparents will be eligible to receive a childcare fee if they look after young children instead of the parents. Besides, the government will create 21,000 creche places.
Reuters quoted Orban as saying, “There are fewer and fewer children born in Europe. For the West, the answer (to that challenge) is immigration. For every missing child there should be one coming in and then the numbers will be fine.”
Like other conservative, nationalist governments in Europe, Hungary is also worried about migration and its declining birth rate. According to Eurostat data from mid-2018, in 2017, 5.1 million babies were born in the EU, 90,000 less than the year before. In the same year, 5.3 million deaths were registered.
It also shows that in 2017, 94,600 live births were registered in Hungary and 131,900 deaths were registered, equating to a population decline of just over 37,000 people.