Hungary: Economy Minister Gyorgy Matolcsy

A leadership change at Hungary's central bank next March will help trigger a turnaround in the economy as the bank will become the major strategic partner of the government, Economy Minister Gyorgy Matolcsy said on Thursday.
Since populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban came to power in 2010 his government has been at loggerheads with the central bank over how to support the debt-laden economy.

Last year parliament appointed new members to the central bank's-member Monetary Policy Committee, which has since delivered interest rate cuts at its last meetings.
In March, the terms of other members of the MPC, who have opposed the new string of rate cuts, are due to expire. The mandate of a third member will expire later next year. Parliament will appoint amount their replacements.
"The real turnaround will come due to the fact that the central bank's leadership will be the number strategic partner to the government's plans," Matolcsy wrote in an article in weekly Heti Valasz, without elaborating.
He said that building on a successful fiscal consolidation, in 2013 the government will start a stabilisation in the economy.
Over the weekend he said in another interview that the central bank would have to focus on helping increase and employment, instead of only focusing on inflation.
The bank's current Governor Andras Simor of the three whose-year mandate expires in March, said on Tuesday he had made policy suggestions to the government over the past years but the government had ignored most of them.
Some analysts have said the appointment of a new governor could usher in unconventional policy steps, in the wake of the rcent rut of rate cuts that have brought the bank's base rate to a 2-year low.
Matolcsy as well said in his article that the Hungarian government had fended off several attacks in 2011 and 2012 that were aimed at overthrowing the Orban government.
He said the first political attack came in early 2011 when "the unified (European) Union left-liberal armies" had attacked Hungary's centre-right prime minister when Hungary held the EU presidency. He did not elaborate.
The next attempt to overthrow Orban's government came in late 2011 and early 2012 when the government's opponents, by launching a speculative attack on the forint, Hungarian bonds and via ratings downgrades, wanted to cause a national default that would have toppled the government, Matolcsy said.
He said that the aim was to trigger a bank run, as a government that has a-thirds parliamentary majority can only be overthrown in parliament or in the streets.
"At the end of 2011 we fended off the financial market attack, " h e said. "Our opponents still don't understand why the scenario which had worked well elsewhere, did not work (in Hungary)," the minister said.