Mass protests force Hungarian PM to ditch internet tax
HUNGARIAN prime minister Viktor Orban has bowed to public pressure and agreed to suspend a planned “internet tax” after huge protests against the controversial move.
Two demonstrations in the past week attended by tens of thousands of Hungarians were sparked by the proposed scheme to make internet service providers pay just under 40p per gigabyte of internet traffic.
The government later said the tax would have been capped at different monthly rates for individual and business users. That would have seen a charge of about £2 a month for individuals and £13 for companies.
Mr Orban yesterday said the tax would not be introduced because “people have questioned the rationality”.
But he said the government would still hold a national consultation from mid-January about regulating and taxing the internet. He also said Hungary would stick to its plan to offer broadband internet access to every household by 2020.
Angry protesters considered the tax as another effort by Mr Orban to centralise power, muzzle the media and greatly increase the role and influence of the state.
His Fidesz party retained its two-thirds majority in parliamentary elections in April and Mr Orban is at the start of his third four-year term. However, anti-government sentiment appears to be increasing.
Arguments with the European Union and the United States have eroded some of Mr Orban’s support. The US recently banned six unnamed Hungarian officials from entering the country, because of alleged corruption.
Commenting on the decision to delay any measure relating to internet regulation, Mr Orban told state radio: “We are not Communists. We are not governing against the people but together with the people.”
Initially, the government tried to paint the anti-internet tax protests as left-wing rabble-rousing. But it soon became clear the mostly youthful protesters were drawn from across the political spectrum, including many who were marching for the first time.
The government said it was necessary to expand the telecommunications tax to the net because people were increasingly using it to make phone calls. Hungary needs more money to meet its deficit targets.
Up to 100,000 people are thought to have gathered in the most recent protests against the tax on Tuesday.
They blocked roads, bridges and other public thoroughfares for hours as they marched through cities, some wearing masks and others scrawling messages on their hands and placards condeming what they claimed was an attack on free speech and human rights.
The European Commission had also expressed its concern.
A spokesman for Neelie Kroes, the European commissioner for digital affairs, said: “It is not OK to try to push people off the internet by using taxes. It’s part of a pattern of actions which have limited freedoms or sought to take rents without achieving a wider economic or social interest.”
However, a government spokesman insisted the move was merely an extension of the existing telecommunications act which aimed, as he put it, to ensure “burden sharing” among Hungarians.