Couples planning a family or already raising children will received additional support, Katalin Novák told a press conference.

Among the forms of support, she cited family-friendly taxation rules, favourable changes in child-care fees for university graduates, added support for mortgage holders, the option of relief on student loan repayments as well as the continuation of the kindergarten development scheme.

She added that a new scheme dubbed Umbilical Cord will be launched in 2018, targeted at Hungarians whose children are born abroad.

The ruling Fidesz party said that if it depended on the opposition, families would not be in a position to move forward.

János Halász, the Fidesz parliamentary group spokesman, told a news conference that at stake in the spring general election was whether the government would protect Hungarian families and help them, or whether families “are once more left in a state of insecurity and alone to bring up their children, to school them and create their homes”.

He insisted that the opposition parties hated the government’s measures to help families.

“On the left, the same people are preparing [for power], who when in power subjected Hungarian families to serial austerity measures,” he said.

Republished with permission of Hungary Matters, MTI’s daily newsletter.

MTI photo: Máthé Zoltán