Rogán believes that the reduction of the bank levy can only happen if lending expands and Hungary’s GDP growth remains steadily over 2%, but preferably around 3%; should lending not pick up, a cut in the levy would be very difficult to conceive.
Earlier today, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said the bank levy was introduced as a “crisis measure” and noted that the government had made a “commitment”, rather than a “promise”, to reduce the levy to a level “not unheard of in Europe” once the country’s economy had improved, Hungarian news agency MTI reported. He said the issue could be revisited, “in a reasonable manner”, now that the Hungarian economy is performing well, adding that the levy could be reduced “in several steps, in a gradual, planned and predictable manner”.
Economy minister Mihály Varga said that although Hungary introduced the extraordinary bank levy as a temporary measure for three years in 2010, it became permanent in 2013 and is expected to be maintained, but at a lower rate.
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