Reuters By Krizstina Than and Marton Dunai
October 31, 2014 7:19 AM
By Krizstina Than and Marton Dunai
BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor
Orban froze plans on Friday to impose a tax on Internet traffic, climbing down
in the face of massive street protests and warnings from the European Union
that the levy was a mistake.
Opponents of the tax, who said it would have hurt consumers
already struggling with a faltering economy, described the U-turn as a major
victory.
But Orban's announcement was unlikely to end discontent
among liberal Hungarians who accuse him of being an autocrat and are frustrated
there is no prospect of removing him until elections in 2018. Recent anti-tax
rallies have been a catalyst for broader anti-government protests.
"This tax in its current form cannot be
introduced," Orban told public radio. "If the people not only dislike
something but also consider it unreasonable then it should not be done."
The climb-down was unusual for the usually combative
Orban, but he may have decided that he already had enough contentious issues on
his plate.
The U.S. government has barred six people with ties to
the government in Hungary, a NATO ally, from entering the United States. It
alleges they are involved in corruption. Orban is also tangling with big
European banks over a scheme to help borrowers that will cost the banks huge
sums.
Meanwhile, there is concern in Western capitals that
Orban is drifting into the orbit of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In his four years in power, Orban's government has
ordered an audit into civil society groups, has tightened state oversight over
the media and slapped costly levies on foreign companies.
The European Union and the United States have voiced
concerns that Orban, who made his name opposing Communist rule in the 1980s,
has acquired too much power and is back-sliding on democracy.
Orban rejects those allegations. Most Hungarian voters
supported him and his Fidesz party in April parliamentary elections: it won
about 45 percent of the vote on party lists.
But that has left a minority of Hungarians, many of them
liberal and pro-European, who dislike Orban's policies yet have been unable to
challenge him at the ballot box.
Some Hungarian commentators have drawn parallels between
Orban and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, who is supported by a majority of
voters but faced protests earlier this year by the liberals whom he has
defeated at the ballot box.
FLAWED LAW
Orban said that the Internet tax plan was not being
scrapped altogether. He told public radio the government would start
consultations next year over internet regulation and potential ways to tax some
of the revenue generated online.
The tax plan was not likely to have made a significant
contribution to bringing down Hungary's budget deficit, which is anyway
shrinking. Orban makes many policy decisions himself, and has a track record of
coming out with radical initiatives with little or no consultation, say people
who know him.
Overall, the law was visibly flawed at several points,
and it seemed ill-prepared. It was not an ideological question or a matter of
big money," said Tamas Lanczi, chief of Hungary's Szazadveg Political
Analysis Centre.
"When any government faces an angry population the
best thing it can do is change course."
The tax protests set off an outpouring of deeper
unhappiness with Orban's rule among liberal-leaning sections of Hungarian
society.
"We are the people! And we the people have the right
to rule the country," the movement that organized the anti-tax protests,
called "100,000 against the Internet tax", said in a statement on
Friday.
The crowd that gathered in front of the economy ministry
on Tuesday evening chanted, alongside slogans about the Internet tax:
"Orban should resign!"
Yet there is no direct challenge to Orban's rule. He has
a two-thirds majority in parliament, there are no national elections for four
years, and the Socialists, who were in government before Orban, are in a state
of disarray.
Under the planned tax, Internet service providers would
have paid 150 forints (60 US cents) per gigabyte of data traffic, though it
would have also let companies offset corporate income tax against the new levy.
Protesters said they feared the telecoms and internet
firms would pass the cost onto consumers. The government later said the tax
would be capped at 700 forints for individuals and 5,000 for companies per
month.
(Writing by Marton Dunai and Christian Lowe; Editing by
Andrew Heavens)
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