Magyar Unveils Cabinet Team to Lead Hungary’s Economic Reset

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(Bloomberg) — Hungary’s incoming Prime Minister Peter Magyar named the key ministers for his new government who will help shoulder the task of repairing frayed European ties and relaunching a stagnant economy.

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Magyar, whose Tisza party unseated Viktor Orban after 16 years in last Sunday’s electoral landslide, has pledged to crack down on corruption, bring Hungary back into the European fold and move toward joining the euro.

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Naming seven of the 16 ministers who will serve in his government at a press conference Monday, he confirmed the appointment of Anita Orban, an energy expert and former Vodafone executive, as foreign minister. Anita Orban, no relation to the outgoing leader, broke with the ruling Fidesz party after it took power in 2010, in part because of concern at premier Orban’s policy of relying on Russian energy imports.

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“We are trying to put together a government that deserves the confidence Hungarians have placed in it, that reflects the enormous mandate it has been given,” Magyar told reporters after a meeting of his future legislators.

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Magyar also named Andras Karman, an economist who served as a state secretary early in Orban’s government, as his finance minister. Karman, who previously worked at the central bank and ran one of the Hungarian units of Austria’s Erste Group Bank AG, has said Hungary should aim to meet the economic criteria for adopting the euro within four years.

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Euro Adoption

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Magyar named Istvan Kapitany, a former global head of retail at Shell Plc, as his economy minister. Kapitany has said he wants to redirect government’s resources toward supporting home-grown small and medium enterprises, breaking with Fidesz’s strategy of backing national champions and offering tax breaks to foreign investors.

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The incoming leadership is moving ahead with its agenda more quickly than expected, including on euro adoption, which is a reassuring sign of commitment for investors, said Mai Doan, an economist at Bank of America Corp.

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“The two-thirds majority was a surprise to everyone, but even more so the fact that they are already effectively governing, they have got teams, they started to negotiate on EU funds,” Doan said.

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Magyar nominated Agnes Forsthoffer, a local businesswoman, for speaker of parliament and Andrea Bujdoso, a former Budapest city councilor as head of their Tisza party’s caucus. The appointment of three women in senior positions contrasts sharply with Orban’s outgoing government, which was composed entirely of men.

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Other names have yet to be disclosed, though Magyar listed the nine remaining portfolios, including the reestablishing of a separate education ministry, which he said was neglected in the previous period. 

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