From the 2026 Budget Audit
Historical research into communism belongs in universities, not a permanent state office.
The NEB produces research and publications on the communist-era power structures. Unlike the archive next door — which preserves a fixed record with individual rights implications — this is scholarship, exactly what independent research institutes and universities are built to carry.
1,595 million Ft per year — roughly 394 Ft per household — for a research office on a specific historical period, with permanent staff whose professional interest lies in the office's continuation.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: a body of published research on communist-era governance and its participants. The unseen: the academic community — universities, independent historical institutes — that does this work without a dedicated state appropriation, and whose competitive-grant funding model disciplines research priorities in ways a permanent office cannot.
Objection
"Research on the communist dictatorship needs state backing; private or university funding is too fragile and politically vulnerable."
Answer
The five-year phase-out allows every in-flight project to complete and every staff member to transition to a university or independent institute position — where precisely this kind of scholarship, on precisely this kind of subject, already sits in every comparable country. The materials the NEB has assembled are transferred to a permanent archive or university collection. The research continues; the permanent state office does not.
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The analyst's verdict
Office of the Committee of National Remembrance
Rationale
The NEB researches the functioning of the communist dictatorship's power structures and the role of individuals within them. Unlike the Historical Archives — which preserves a fixed record set with a direct individual-rights dimension, and is held at a Nominal Freeze — the NEB is a research-and-publication body: it produces historical analysis. Historical research is valuable, but it is not a rights-protection function, not a constitutional precondition, and not a protective response to irreversible harm; it is exactly the kind of scholarship that universities, independent historical institutes, and voluntarily-funded research bodies carry. The state cannot determine, by calculation, the correct quantity or direction of historical research into a particular period — research priorities are a matter of dispersed scholarly judgement, and a permanent state research office on a defined historical subject carries the standard public-choice exposure of a body whose staff have a professional interest in the office's continuation. The case for a phase-out rather than an immediate cut rests on a genuine reliance interest: the NEB has in-flight research programmes, publication commitments, and permanent academic staff, and an abrupt closure would strand half-finished work. A 5-year phase-out allows current projects to complete and the staff to transition to university and independent-institute positions where this kind of research properly sits.
Transition mechanism
Linear phase-out over 5 years. Current research projects run to completion; the protected party is the office's permanent academic and support staff — roughly 60-80 employees — who transition to universities and independent research institutes. The archival and documentary materials the NEB has assembled are transferred to a permanent archive or university collection.
Affected groups
NEB staff, facing a 5-year transition into the academic sector; the field of communist-era historical research, which continues in universities and voluntarily-funded institutes.
Szabad Társadalom Intézet
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