From the 2026 Budget Audit
State-security archive: the record is closed — the budget need not grow.
The archive preserving communist-era secret-police files holds a finite, fixed record. Individuals retain the right to access their files; the mandate is preservation, not expansion.
2,148 million Ft per year — roughly 530 Ft per household — for an archive whose record set is closed and whose marginal cost of access falls as digitisation advances.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: researchers, journalists, and individuals accessing files held on them — a genuine rights function worth protecting. The unseen: an uncapped envelope on a bounded task, where real-terms growth serves the institution rather than the fixed archive it holds.
Objection
"These files are irreplaceable historical evidence; any cut risks losing access to the record of the communist era."
Answer
No cut is proposed — the framework holds the nominal allocation and lets real-terms erosion gradually compress the envelope as digitisation reduces access costs. The custody function is real and protected; what is not warranted is expansion of a fixed archive.
Share if you think a fixed archive should have a fixed budget.
The analyst's verdict
Historical Archives of the State Security Services
Rationale
The archive preserves and makes accessible the records of the communist-era state security services. The custody of these records has a genuine rights dimension: individuals have an enforceable interest in accessing files held on them, and the records are evidence in restitution, rehabilitation, and historical-accountability proceedings. That said, the archival mandate is bounded and self-limiting — the record set is closed and finite, it does not grow, and the core task is preservation and controlled access rather than open-ended programme activity. This is the textbook profile for a Nominal Freeze: a bounded mandate where outright cut is not warranted because the custody function is real, but expansion is equally unwarranted because the underlying material is fixed. Hold the nominal allocation; let real-terms erosion gradually compress the envelope as digitisation reduces the marginal cost of access.
Transition mechanism
Hold the nominal allocation. Review whether digitisation can reduce the long-run operating cost of controlled access.
Affected groups
Archive staff; researchers and individuals exercising file-access rights, who are not adversely affected by a nominal freeze.
Szabad Társadalom Intézet
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