The Hungarian prime minister, who pioneered themes dear to U.S. conservatives, is seeking to tame inflation with methods that remind his critics of communist-era central planning.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary pioneered many of the themes dear to conservatives in the United States, railing for years against “migration insanity,” “the woke virus” and “gender madness.”
Now Mr. Orban is engaged in an effort that veers away from the orthodox conservative view that the state should stay out of the economy. He’s trying to set the price of eggs and other goods.
Unable to curb Hungary’s inflation rate, the highest in the European Union, and facing a surge of support for a political rival, Mr. Orban last week ordered price controls on 30 basic foodstuffs. And he accused supermarkets of price gouging, particularly on eggs and butter.
Mr. Orban said the Hungarian government would starting this week force supermarkets to bring down their prices by ensuring that what they charge for essential foods does not exceed a 10 percent markup on what they cost wholesale. The current markup for eggs, he said, was an “unacceptable” 40 percent.
“Prices don’t rise, they are raised,” Mr. Orban thundered, blaming inflation on grocery stores, the biggest of which in Hungary are foreign companies like Britain’s Tesco and Austria’s Spar.
Hungary has been hailed by many American conservatives (and President Trump) as a beacon for how a country should be run. But the move by Mr. Orban underlines how he has struggled to manage the thing many Hungarians care about most: their country’s ailing economy.