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(Bloomberg) — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s authorities is pushing again in opposition to rising criticism over fiscal administration that traders say could push the recession-hit economic system right into a unfavorable spiral.

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Finance Minister Mihaly Varga insisted the nation’s plans are on target after the European Commission pointed this week to “weaknesses in budget planning and execution” and “ad hoc” spending for making a foul state of affairs worse.

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Hungary “disputes” the evaluation, Varga mentioned Thursday, rejecting a suggestion from the European Union’s govt to chop lavish vitality subsidies.

“We’re on track to hopefully reduce the budget deficit to below 3%” of gross home product subsequent yr, he mentioned. “I wouldn’t call this a structural problem.”

The price range has racked up a file shortfall for the primary 4 months of a yr, and religion within the authorities’s capacity to ship on its pledges is waning. Even the Fiscal Council, a authorities physique accountable for advising on public funds, expressed doubt.

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“The achievement of the deficit goal can be considered risky on the whole,” it mentioned in its report back to parliament this week.

Hungary has suffered greater than some other EU member from Europe’s cost-of-living disaster, as rising meals and gas prices helped drive inflation to a bloc-high of greater than 25% earlier this yr.

Orban responded by capping meals and gas costs and subsidizing utility payments to protect Hungarians from hovering vitality prices. 

While gas worth caps have since been phased out, discretionary spending has undermined fiscal consolidation, together with the acquisition of Vodafone Plc’s Hungarian enterprise for $1.9 billion, a stake now majority-controlled by an organization near Orban.

Until lately, traders’ consideration has been on the central financial institution’s EU-topping key rate of interest which, at 17% after a one percentage-point minimize this week, drew in sizzling cash to anchor probably the most risky currencies globally.

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But the sky-high borrowing prices helped deepen a recession that the federal government solely expects to exit in third quarter. Tax income has plunged following a plunge in consumption, whereas surging debt upkeep prices have prompted a spike in expenditure. 

On prime of that, the EU has frozen greater than €30 billion ($32 billion) in grants and loans over corruption and rule-of-law issues, including to the fiscal pressure. Earlier this month the federal government raised its deficit goal for 2024 and 2025, simply months after abandoning its aim for this yr and lacking final yr’s.

“The extent of fiscal deterioration varies greatly among emerging markets, and Hungary is one of the worse culprits,” mentioned Eimear Daly, a strategist at NatWest Markets. “I do think there is a risk that in the medium term market focus shifts from monetary policy to fiscal policy.”

Now the federal government could need to resort to additional steps to boost income, together with breaking a pledge to scrap taxes on banking, vitality, pharmaceutical, retail and airline companies enacted final yr.

The fiscal gap Varga has to plug is within the ballpark of $3 billion, mentioned Viktor Zsiday, a portfolio supervisor at Hold Asset Management in Budapest.

“Hungary is in a vulnerable position in terms of financing,” he mentioned. “Investors are lured in by high rates, but most of them are close to the exit and could leave at any moment if bad news would hit, for example about the state of the budget.”