BUDAPEST, April 12 (Reuters) - Hungary's centre-right poll winner Fidesz party will cut taxes, clamp down on corruption and eradicate bureaucracy to boost the country's competitiveness, party leader Viktor Orban said on Monday
STRONG MANDATE
"The second round of elections will be about unity. Will there be unity in Hungary or discord? The bigger the unity, the greater the success. The greater the success in the second round, the faster the recovery will be.
"The stronger mandate the next parliament receives, the stronger the next government and parliamentary majority will be able to drag Hungary out of its tough situation.
"Democracy is stable in Hungary and this gives us reason for great hope".
ON FAR RIGHT
"Let's take the whole issue in the European context. The outcome of the elections showed that Hungary is a European country. Democracy is strong enough to defend itself.
"The best recipe I can provide and offer to the Hungarian voters is a good government and a well-performing government. I am convinced that the better the performance of the government is the weaker the far right will be in the future".
TAX CUTS
"The most important step will be tax cuts, I have been for this for years and I will do my utmost to make it happen".
"The second is ... a comprehensive attack on bureaucracy".
"We will do our best to clean up the economy, and to curb corruption".
"If I can list a fourth (priority) it is that we want to carry out a reform of the state. We think that an efficient state is a competitive advantage and Hungary is in a competitive disadvantage (at the moment)".
"The most important economic policy task is to improve the competitiveness of the Hungarian economy by a great extent".
"Within a short time, Hungary must be made into the most competitive economic system of the region".
"The biggest professional challenge is to improve Hungary's competitiveness significantly while at the same time strengthening social safety".
BUDGET, GROWTH
"In Hungary, all austerity measures have led to a slowdown in economic growth (in the past)".
"In the focus of our economic policy is not austerity measures, but how to generate economic growth -- this is the question".
"I cannot carry out any kind of budget rationalisation if at the same time we cannot put the Hungarian economy on a growth track".
"A precondition to any rationalisation is economic growth".
"Hungary is not in a position that structural changes or modernisation could be carried out without economic growth".
"The real unemployment rate is somewhere between 16 and 20 percent. If unemployment stays at these high levels for a longer time we cannot hope that Hungary remains a moderate predictable democracy".
"The question today is not what budget deficit the future government will set. The first question is what the status of the budget is at this moment.
"According to projections, it seems that by mid-May or end May ... the deficit will reach 95-100 percent of the full year deficit plan, which means there will not be any reserves left for the second half of the year".
"First we need to see the real situation and the IMF and the EU and the investors ... must understand that".
"Our goal is to reduce the budget deficit. I will do my best to ensure that we keep the budget deficit within limits and reduce it ... Once we know the size of the deficit ... then we will be able to draw up a credible (fiscal) roadmap".
SMALLER PARLIAMENT
"My hope is that the parliamentary group can assemble a legislative timetable (even before the government is formed), which will contain important and symbolic issues, including the issue of double citizenship.
"We want a smaller parliament, but that requires unity in parliament. We also need unity for changes in the number of local government representatives and local government levels.
"There is no time. We cannot think in 100-day periods and ask for patience.
"We have neither the means nor the intent to change the date of local government elections, they are due when they are due." "We have no mandate for negotiations, therefore we could not negotiate with (international lenders).
We have met several times, we may call these consultations, but in the absence of a mandate we could not make an agreement" .
Reporting by Krisztina Than and Gergely Szakacs
Reuters
