The Hungarian govt has bowed to the desire of the people

Oct 31, 2014 10:51 GMT  ·  By

The Hungarian Internet community has won a big battle as the government has finally backed off from wanting to create an Internet tax.

“This tax in its current form cannot be introduced,” said Prime Minister Viktor Orban, much to everyone’s joy.

The Hungarian ruling party keeps saying that the tax is a necessity to help balance the country’s budget next year, but the Internet users are having none of that and neither is the European Union, which has already condemned the move. European Union Commission spokesman Ryan Heath says that the tax is bad in principle because it is a unilateral measure applied to a global phenomenon.

Speaking on the public radio, Orban said that if the people dislike something and consider it unreasonable, then it shouldn’t be done and the tax code should be modified. “This must be withdrawn, and we do not have to deal with this now,” he said.

Even so, he didn’t do this with a smile on his face. In fact, he said that people don’t just oppose the tax, but they question the rationale of the issue and nothing can be done in these circumstances. Protesters have also called for Orban’s ousting.

Outrageous tax

For the past several days, there have been protests in the country to put a stop to this Internet tax that people believe to be the worst plan yet. Originally, the levy was set at 150 forints (€0.5 / $0.6) per gigabyte of data traffic.

Thousands took to the streets to tell the government that this was unacceptable. Such a move would increase monthly bills and would stifle innovation and freedom of expression on the Internet. People would start avoiding services that require a lot of traffic, such as YouTube, music and movie streaming tools and so on. Even sending files over an email would weigh down on a bill and Internet usage would be paralyzed.

Following the first set of protests, the government said there would be a cap on the tax, namely 700 forints (€2.35 / $3) for regular individuals and 5,000 forints (€16.5 / $21) for companies, but that managed to only aggravate the situation more, getting an estimated 100,000 people out into the streets.

An estimated 72.6 percent of the population in Hungary was online in 2013, which puts the number at some 7 million Internet users. In the Net Index chart, Hungary scored 25th, with an average speed of 32.79 Mbps, two spots ahead of the United States.