Poverty up in 2012, further austerity looms, say Socialists (adds Fidesz)

Budapest, December 27 (MTI) - The number of Hungarians living in poverty increased in 2012 and the government is planning to implement another set of austerities worth 850 billion forints (EUR 2.9bn), the spokesman for the opposition Socialist party said on Thursday.

Zsolt Torok told MTI that the number of those who work yet cannot survive on their income has risen to over one million. Four million people live below subsistence level, including 1.5 million below the poverty line, he said.

Torok said that while the number of people in need was rising, Fidesz politicians and their associates are landing lucrative jobs. As examples he mentioned the appointment of parliamentary speaker Laszlo Kover s wife as head of a district administration office and a Fidesz lawmaker s access to housing subsidies for property he had not resided in for six years.

He said that on January 2 the Socialists would initiate talks with other opposition formations to "end this era and secure a more promising future".

In response, Fidesz called the Socialists social sensitivity disingenuous, noting that Torok never expressed concern in the past when the number of the unemployed doubled during the Gyurcsany and Bajnai governments and many hundred thousand families were "pushed into the trap of foreign exchange loans".

Torok is probably disappointed "because banks and international companies with monopolies will be forced to participate in sharing public burdens also next year," the Fidesz statement added.