From the 2026 budget audit
21 billion Ft a year to renovate Parliament — 15 years in, with no binding deadline or cost ceiling.
The Steindl Imre Programme has run since 2011; the Parliament's internal renovation is still in its preparatory phase, with no binding completion deadline or fixed cost ceiling — officials estimate the full renovation at 8–10 years.
21,369 million Ft in 2026 alone — roughly 5,280 Ft per household — for a capital programme whose final cost and completion date remain unfixed.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: a gradually restored Parliament building and associated heritage assets around Kossuth Square. The unseen: a programme running with no binding completion deadline, accumulating professional staff and contractors whose interest lies in its continuation, not its completion — a cost that grows unless capped.
Objection
"Parliament is a national monument; underfunding its restoration would cause irreversible damage."
Answer
No one proposes underfunding the restoration — the framework holds the allocation at its current nominal level, not cuts it. What a nominal freeze requires is a published, binding completion plan — defined scope, a fixed deadline, and a cost ceiling — so every future year's spend is measured against work remaining, not against programme momentum. And once the works are delivered, the standing programme company should be wound up too: this is a time-boxed project, not a permanent institution.
Share if you think a restoration programme should have a finish line.
The analyst's verdict
Support for the Steindl Imre Programme
Rationale
The Steindl Imre programme renovates the Parliament building (Országház) and a cluster of government heritage buildings around Kossuth Square; the Parliament's own internal renovation is a multi-year programme still in its pre-design phase, with the detailed budget not yet fixed pending the historical documentation and design tender.[^1] The preservation and structural maintenance of the building that houses the legislature is a legitimate state expenditure — the asset is the physical precondition of the constitutional function. But a renovation programme is a finite, bounded mandate, not a permanent line, and a capital programme of this scale carries the standard public-choice exposure: the longer it runs and the larger its envelope, the more it acquires a professional constituency — programme staff, contractors, consultants — whose interest is in the programme's continuation independent of the renovation work remaining. The framework's honest classification holds the line at its current nominal level rather than letting it expand: hold the allocation, require the programme to publish a fixed-scope, fixed-horizon completion plan against which each year's spend is measured, and let real-terms erosion at typical inflation discipline the envelope while the finite mandate is delivered.
Transition mechanism
Hold the nominal allocation. Require a published completion plan with a defined end date; treat the programme as closing on that date, not as an open-ended line.
Affected groups
Programme staff and contractors, who face a defined rather than open-ended horizon. The renovation of the Parliament building proceeds.
Sources
- A Steindl Imre Program · Steindl Imre Program Nonprofit Zrt. (2025)
Free Society Institute
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