H.E. Dr. Tamás Magyarics:

I will do my best. It is difficult to assess whether somebody is a homeless person in the different communities. We will do our best to try to find out the statistics that have been sought.

The Deputy also asked about the economic situation and about how Hungary applies the rule of law. Most of the so-called "surplus taxes" that were mentioned have been imposed on banks and telecommunications companies, etc., that were paying relatively low taxes. The Government believes the utilities that were sold into private ownership with guaranteed profits, etc., are strategic sectors. By the way, they are being bought back at their market price. The different taxes on the banks and the other organisations are not extraconstitutional. The case can be made for and against whether these taxes make sense. I would like to add that approximately 80% of the banks in Hungary are owned by foreign "mother banks", especially German, Italian and Austrian banks. They were making their highest profits in Hungary and neighbouring countries. For that reason, it does not seem excessive to tax them to make them share some of the economic burden. By the way, this whole process has been co-ordinated with the banking union and others who have sometimes - not quite happily - seen the point and accepted the justification for extra taxes.

I was asked about the blacklisting of NGOs, which is a very controversial issue. Approximately 80,000 NGOs are operating in Hungary. There is currently a dispute with one of them. The NGO that has a dispute with Hungary is running three of the 12 programmes under the so-called Norwegian fund. The other nine programmes are handled by the state. As the members of the committee might be aware, the Norwegian fund is given to each of the new member states. In some countries, like the Czech Republic, the whole programme is run by the state. In Hungary, nine programmes are run by the state and three programmes are run by NGOs picked by the Norwegian fund. One of them is under discussion at the moment for suspected economic irregularities and possible non-transparent operations. With regard to the economic or financial irregularities, the chief executive of this NGO, Veronika Mora, admitted in an interview that it had been having some irregular financial activities, such as pre-financing programmes which they should not have done.

Strictly speaking, there might have been some financial problems with the handling of the programmes. Second, it was not quite transparent because the applications were given to two independent reviewers but ultimately in a lot of different cases, the independent reviewers' written assessments and points were thrown out the window and organisations which previously had not been given very favourable reviews by independent reviewers were provided with the funds.

This is a very unfortunate dispute, which has been blown out of proportion. I think that sooner or later the problem will be solved in co-operation with the Norwegian partner. There is an ongoing investigation and debate between the Norwegian and Hungarian sides, so I do not wish to prejudge the outcome of the process.