Is this the impact of the crisis already? Massive hole in Hungary's budget
The graph below clearly shows how much the August gap stands out from the series of Aug readings.
Interestingly, the Finance Ministry's statement also put the recent public finance data in a rather gloomy context. "The war in our neighbourhood and the sanctions imposed by Brussels [on Russia for the invasion of Ukraine] have sparked an energy crisis and wartime inflation unseen for decades across Europe. The global economic outlook is increasingly bleak as a result of the resulting war crisis," they wrote.
By the end of August, the central government sub-system closed with a deficit of HUF 2872.7 billion. Within this, the central budget had a deficit of HUF 2,964.6 billion, the state funds had a surplus of HUF 236.1 billion, and the social security funds had a deficit of HUF 144.2 billion, according to the ministry's summary, which does not yet include detailed expenditure and revenue data.
Those will arrive in two weeks. For the time being, the ministry said that there was an annual increase in the following budget expenditures: housing subsidies, expenditure on chapter-managed appropriations and programmes co-funded by the EU.
Payments for pensions (HUF 3,152.9 billion by end-Aug) and preventive and curative medical care (HUF 1,436.3 billion) were also higher than a year earlier.
Cover photo: Getty Images
