HUNGARY: Government moves to lift Sunday shopping ban | Progresiv
Hungary’s government is backtracking on an unpopular law banning most retail stores from opening on Sundays, turning instead to focus on a referendum on European migrant quotas. 
The government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban wants to keep voters’ attention on the referendum on the European Union’s push to resettle migrants from the Middle East and Africa across the bloc’s members, the prime minister’s chief of staff, Anton Rogan, said. The government is seeking to bar migrants from settling in Hungary. “The government wants nothing to disrupt the public debate about that. We are convinced that Brussels may only be stopped if an overwhelming majority of Hungarians say a strong no,” Mr. Rogan said.
There is no date set yet for the referendum on the EU plans to resettle migrants.
The government asked parliament to allow all shops to be open on Sundays, Mr. Rogan said in a news conference. Its position is a reversal from Friday when Mr. Orban stood by the law introduced in March 2015 that allows only small stores to be open.
Mr. Orban’s Fidesz party has a majority in parliament. Allowing all stores to open on Sundays could happen in a few days, after lawmakers vote on Tuesday in an expedited procedure to scrap the law, Mr. Rogan said.
Opinion polls have shown a majority of Hungarians oppose the restrictions on Sunday shopping, which were put in place last year. Some 68% of Hungarians didn’t agree with most shops remaining closed on Sunday, according to a poll by Ipsos in December 2015.
Mr. Orban, whose party has led opinion polls since coming to power in 2010, dropped a government initiative in 2014 to tax Internet traffic after tens of thousands of people demonstrated against the plan.
By banning most retail stores from opening on Sundays, the government said it had tried to shift rising household demand amid an economic recovery away from large, foreign-owned retail firms to smaller, mostly domestically owned shops, change people’s lifestyle and promote its policy of protecting family values.
The government’s move is a victory for the opposition Socialist party, which has been seeking the opportunity for more than a year to call a plebiscite to scrap the Sunday shopping ban. Hungary’s highest court approved last week the party’s request to hold a national referendum.
Hungary last held a national referendum in 2008 at the initiative of the then-opposition Fidesz party of Mr. Orban. The outcome of that referendum—on medical and education fees—was a major factor that pushed the governing Socialist party out of power and helped Fidesz win the 2010 election in a landslide. (www.wsj.com)
