Gulyas: 2020 budget vote planned for July 12

The government will submit next year's draft budget to parliament on June 4 with a final vote on it expected on July 12, the head of the Prime Minister's Office said on Thursday. Gergely Gulyas also said Hungary's economic growth rate of 5.3 percent in the first quarter was the highest in the European Union. He said the figure proved that the slowdown in Germany's economy did not automatically have a direct impact on the Hungarian economy. He added, at the same time, that the government was aware of the threat posed by a slowdown in western European growth and it will come to a decision on implementing an economic protection action plan in two weeks' time. Answering a question, Gulyas quoted leaders of BMW as saying that a slowdown of German industry would not affect the German car maker's development of a new plant under way in Debrecen, in eastern Hungary.