The minister without portfolio in charge of negotiations with international organisations met Reza Moghadam, Director of the IMF's European Department, Willy Kiekens, Executive Director of IMF’s Board, and Christoph Rosenberg, IMF’s mission chief for Hungary. Consultations regarded the date and terms of starting negotiations on the precautionary standby loan.

Tamás Fellegi, minister without portfolio and Hungarian mission chief of the IMF talks arrives at the IMF headquarters in Washington for discussion with competent officials MTI, photo by: Demeter Pogár

“With a round closed as a result of consultations with the European Union on infringement proceedings, the time has come to deal with issues beyond the infringement proceedings and extend consultations to institutions not included in the infringement proceedings, such as IMF and the European Central Bank,” Tamás Fellegi stressed.

“Significant convergence is seen in the positions. I can say there is absolute mutual agreement in the fact that these talks are about an economic and financial package, and as we are still in the preparatory phase, the IMF is not interested in setting terms of political nature, as they would prevent the start of negotiations on economic and financial issues. Naturally, this is our opinion”, the minister added.

“We think the parties must clearly focus on economic and economy management issues, and in our opinion under the current conditions the required compromise measures have been taken in connection with the infringement, thus on our side there is nothing to prevent us from starting the negotiations”, Tamás Fellegi added.

“I have absolute confidence in the solution. As recently we made it clear, the Hungarian Government is committed to the negotiations, we are not playing on time, or as it is put here in Washington, we do not play the Turkish card. We clearly endeavour to launch and successfully complete negotiations as soon as possible. This is in the interest of the market, the population and the Hungarian people”, Tamás Fellegi stressed.

The expression “Turkish card” refers to the Turkish Government’s previous practice of postponing the start of negotiations with the IMF just to improve the country’s capital market ranking, but officially never requested the start of talks."

Source: kormany.hu