After complaint to the EU

Hungary wants to sue Spar for defamation

A Spar store in the Hungarian city of Nyiregyhaza(Bild: Panama - stock.adobe.com)

The Hungarian government wants to sue Spar for defamation. "Proceedings will be opened against Spar in court, presumably for defamation," said Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, on Thursday. This was triggered by a complaint in Brussels.

The Austrian government and Spar had written letters to the EU Commission in March in which they stated that a special tax introduced in 2020 discriminated against foreign retailers in Hungary.

The special tax would therefore be in breach of EU law. The Salzburg-based retail group did not wish to comment on the Hungarian government's threat of legal action. "We are not commenting on this," it said in response to an APA inquiry.

Complaint being examined
The EU Commission announced in April that it was investigating the complaints. The supermarket chain, which is owned by the founding family Reisch, Drexel and Poppmeier, is one of the largest Austrian retail companies. The company operates in Hungary, Italy, Slovenia and Croatia in addition to its home market.

Since the government announced the measure, taxes for retailers in Hungary have risen to up to 4.5 percent of turnover, according to Spar Austria Managing Director Hans Reisch in the letter to the EU Commission. Foreign retailers, including Spar Hungary, are "confronted with the highest tax bracket of the special tax", Reisch wrote in March.

Competitors benefit
He added that Hungarian competitors operating in franchise chains consistently benefit from a lower tax rate of up to one percent. The tax forces foreign retailers to operate at a loss, as retail profit margins would be below 4.5 percent, Reisch explained.