Navracsics said SMEs faced “entirely different” challenges depending on whether they were based in the west or the east of the country.

He added that there was a need to differentiate between businesses whose owners simply wanted to provide for their families and those who wanted to scale up and expand.

He said regional disparities in degrees of development needed to be reduced and infrastructure white spots eliminated. Richárd Szabados, the state secretary for SMEs, said Hungary’s 900,000 SMEs were “not a homogenous segment”.