Hungary

Hungary told its European Union counterparts that it will cost at least 770 million euros ($810 million) to revamp its oil industry as they wrangle over potential sanctions that would target Russian supplies, Bloomberg News reported. Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government said 550 million euros were needed to overhaul its refineries to comply with the ban, and another 220 million euros for a pipeline from Croatia, according to people familiar with discussions that have taken place this week between EU ministers and documents seen by Bloomberg.

Tungsram released a statement that the company has filed for bankruptcy protection, Hungary Today reported. The company on Wednesday informed employees, trade unions, works councils and banks of this compulsory measure, as required by law. It was reported that 1,600 employees of the company were laid off at the end of April, 400 of them in Budapest’s Újpest district alone. “Tungsram Operations’ lending partner, Eximbank, exercised its legal right to file for bankruptcy on Wednesday,” the Index article says.

Hungary's OTP Bank, Central Europe's largest independent lender, is under pressure from the government of Ukraine, where the bank is also present, to sell its Russian unit, Chief Executive Sandor Csanyi said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Earlier this month Csanyi said the bank would sell its Russian operation if there was a buyer, adding market presence there could become a moral issue. The Russian and Ukrainian units accounted for 15.8% of OTP's profit last year.

Slovenia’s premier moved to block a controversial deal that would hand a large chunk of the country’s biggest tourism group to a buyer with ties to the family of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Bloomberg News reported. Prime Minister Janez Jansa’s cabinet on Monday approved a 41.6 million-euro ($47.2 million) boost to the capital of the country’s Sovereign Holding, allowing it to exercise an option to buy the 43.2% stake in Sava d.d., which controls hotels spanning the Adriatic coast to the shore of picturesque Lake Bled in the Alps.

Europe’s top court ruled on Wednesday that the European Union could withhold money for member countries that have curtailed the independence of their democratic institutions, marking a potentially costly defeat for Hungary and Poland, the Wall Street Journal reported. The ruling, by the EU’s European Court of Justice, gives the bloc more power to clamp down on governments accused of purging their judiciary or weakening anti-corruption watchdog agencies.

Hungary's central bank raised its base rate by 30 basis points to 2.4% on Tuesday, its highest level since May 2014, and pledged further rate hikes next year in order to anchor rising inflation expectations, Reuters reported. The National Bank of Hungary (NBH) also raised the rate on its overnight deposit facility by a larger-than-expected 80 basis points to 2.4%, aligning it with the base rate in a surprise move which the bank said was aimed at supporting the stability of swap market rates. The base rate decision was in line with a Reuters poll forecast last week.

Hungary delivered its fourth interest-rate increase in a month to nurture a nascent recovery in the forint, Bloomberg News reported. The central bank in Budapest raised the one-week deposit rate by 20 basis points to 3.10% on Thursday. Economists in a Bloomberg survey were evenly split in predicting a 10 or 20 basis point increase. The central bank is doubling down on monetary tightening after its inflation-fighting credibility was dented this fall, when it prematurely slowed the pace of rate hikes as peers in the Czech Republic and Poland accelerated theirs and prices continued to surge.

Business registrations in Hungary were up 1% in the third quarter of 2021 on a quarterly basis after falling by 2.2% in Q2, state news wire MTI reports, citing data by statistical agency Eurostat, the Budapest Business Journal reported. Bankruptcy declarations dropped by 8.5% in Q3 after they had risen by 2.7% in Q2. Business registrations in the EU in July-September were down 3.4% following a 5.6% growth in Q2.

If there isn't an immediate intervention, "the Metropolitan Government will become insolvent by the end of the year,” Budapest Deputy Mayor Ambrus Kiss said in a recent interview, HungaryToday.hu reported. The politician blames ever-increasing expenditures and the central government for the situation. In order to avoid insolvency, this year’s budget had to be modified in 65 points, Kiss revealed.