Hungarian PM blames EU for economic crisis

Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban lashed out at the European Union for failing to solve the bloc's economic crisis on Saturday, a day after calling for a new economic system. "It must be said: The crisis is in fact Brussels' crisis," Orban told several thousand supporters during a visit to the prominent Hungarian minority in neighbouring Romania. "Brussels is the main obstacle to finding ways to resolve the economic problems," the conservative Hungarian premier said in Baile Tusnad, 230 kilometres (145 miles) north of the Romanian capital Bucharest. "Brussels wastes weeks defining the size of chicken cages, forcing farmers to put toys in pigsties, worrying that the peace of a goose's soul is an important European issue while hundreds of thousands of citizens lose their jobs, watch their financial system collapse and feel it is getting harder and harder to survive," he added. There are no "European recipes" to manage the debt crisis, Orban charged. He has repeatedly clashed with European Union officials owing to moves that would stem Hungarian media freedoms, stack members of his rightwing Fidesz party in key institutions and undermine the national central bank. On Friday the outspoken Hungarian leader told entrepreneurs in Budapest: "We hope that it will not be necessary to introduce a new system to replace democracy, but we need new economic systems and new ideas."