Peter Magyar said the government will maintain the reduction in excise tax as oil and gas company MOL will maintain its reduced margins.

The prime minister said the price protection mechanism had cost Hungarian taxpayers 50 billion forints a month.

"By the way, someone should ask the leaders of Fidesz and their recently laid-off lying propagandists where the 1,000-forint petrol price is that they used to scare people with before the elections," Magyar said in the post.

The previous government capped the prices of petrol and diesel at 595 forints and 615 forints per litre.

Price tracker holtankoljak.hu put average prices at the pump at 635 forints (EUR 1.80) per litre for petrol and 655 forints per litre for diesel on Wednesday.

Fidesz: Scrapping fuel price ceiling 'serious mistake'

The government's decision to phase out 'protected' fuel prices is a "serious mistake" because "there are no guarantees that oil prices could not rapidly go up again" amid global uncertainties, MPs of the opposition Fidesz party said in a statement late on Wednesday.

In their statement, the group said that the current price ceiling should be left in place.

They insisted that the government was breaching another campaign pledge as Tisza had promised during the campaign to reduce the price of petrol to 480 forints and cut the excise tax.

Prime Minister Peter Magyar said earlier on Wednesday that the government would propose removing the fuel price control as "the pump price of fuels could drop 10-15 forints below the cap this week".

The Fidesz government introduced the price caps in March, putting a cap of 595 forints (EUR 1.7) per litre for 95 petrol and 615 forints per litre for diesel at the pump for Hungarian vehicles.

Photo: Pixabay

Source: MTI – Hungary’s national news agency since 1881.
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