Women with four or more children are exempted from income tax for life. Families with at least three children are eligible for a grant to purchase a car that seats seven or more people.
Housing assistance is also a central part of the platform. Families with two children are eligible for mortgage loan reduction that could be increased if they have a third child.
Every EU country has a sub-replacement level birth rate. According to U.N. data, Eastern and Western Europe have estimated total fertility rates of 1.657 and 1.683 live births per woman respectively for the years 2015 to 2020 -- well below the replacement rate of 2.1.
Cardinal Parolin also expressed support for family policies in his comments at the international forum, but he did not specify what type of policies.
“I think that the European Union should make very, very strong policies in favor of families. I think that is one, one concrete point, which can be taken into account as soon as possible,” Parolin said.
But he underlined that the Holy See would like countries to take a positive approach to migration focused on fraternity, rather than a negative one with a “materialistic and pragmatic” focus.
The discussion on migration took place the week before Pope Francis’ trip to Budapest to attend the International Eucharistic Congress taking place Sept. 5-12.
According to his official schedule, Pope Francis will meet with Orbán as soon as he arrives in Budapest on the morning of Sept. 12 for his seven-hour visit to Hungary.
Yet the pope cast doubt on this meeting in a radio interview broadcast this week on Sept. 1.
When asked what he would like to say to Orbán during their scheduled meeting, the pope replied: “I don’t know if I am going to meet him.”
The pope added: “And one of the things I do is not follow a script; when I am in front of a person, I look him in the eyes and let things come out.”
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Courtney Mares is a Rome Correspondent for Catholic News Agency. A graduate of Harvard University, she has reported from news bureaus on three continents and was awarded the Gardner Fellowship for her work with North Korean refugees.