Hugary's Orbán calls for less climate panic, more babies.

 Hungary’s Orbán calls for less climate panic, more babies – POLITICO

Viktor Orbán, the prime minister of Hungary, has accused other European politicians of fomenting fear about the threat posed by climate change while neglecting the issue of declining birth rates. Hungary is one of many nations in Central and Eastern Europe seeking to reverse declining birth rates, which poses difficult funding issues for the welfare state as the population ages and the proportion of people in working age declines. The Hungarian leader intensified these policies on Thursday by declaring that the government would reduce the requirement for women to qualify for a lifelong exemption from paying taxes from four to three children.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who attended the Budapest Demographic Summit, praised Hungary’s efforts to encourage families to have more children and warned that demographic change is an existential risk for her country. It must be taken into account that Hungary’s populist right-wing government, social conservatism, and a biased media landscape are making it increasingly difficult for the country’s climate activists to get their message across. Orbán has made it clear that he isn’t concerned about climate change, and he has blamed EU climate policies for soaring gas prices.

Even though birth rates are decreasing all over Europe and this issue has become a huge problem in my continent, there is no need to deny the existence of climate change and the negative consequences that we will all face if there are no better and more ambitious measures implemented soon. Nevertheless, it is true that nowadays, women are not really interested in becoming mothers at an early age or even having more than 1 or 2 children at most.

Written by: Victoria Fernández Vázquez.