Orbán said that while “poverty is itself colourless, solutions do have different party colours”. He said Hungary was the only country in the European Union today where 90% of children received state-financed meals four times a day from the age of three.

“This means these children cannot be hungry”, regardless of their parents’ financial situation, he said. On a different subject, Orbán was asked about the government’s position on offering early retirement to people in jobs requiring them to be in good physical condition such as ambulance staff, firemen or drivers.

Jobbik’s Tamás Sneider said these people were being forced into fostered work by the time they reached the age of 55 or 60.

Orbán said the government did not support early retirement because this would reduce the pension payments of other pensioners, and the government has pledged to maintain the real value of pensions. He added that fostered work, while not ideal, was a solution to this problem.

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MTI photo Kovács Tamás