A European Commission spokesman confirmed to MTI that the EC had sent an official notice to Hungary on Thursday and thereby launched the infringement procedure over the legislation adopted in Hungary in December 2014. The government has two months to respond to the notice.

The law in question prohibits the sale of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) by retailers with net revenue of at least 15 billion forints (EUR 48m) if they book no profits for two years in a row.

The regulation will apply to retailers generating at least half of their sales revenue from FMCG sales.

The revenue limit was cut from an original 50 billion forints after the act was sent back to Parliament by President János Áder.

The final version also brought closer the deadline by which the new rule will apply to January 1, 2017 from 2018, and clarified that it will be based on the results of the 2015 and 2016 business years.

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