From the 2026 budget audit
Inclusion-policy spending: results or rhetoric?
1.11 billion forints for general inclusion-policy and Roma nationality tasks — a programme line that sits above individual scholarships and self-government support, with a less clear evidence base.
About 279 Ft per taxpayer per year — 1.11 billion Ft — for inclusion-policy activities whose relationship to actual educational and employment outcomes is not documented in the budget table.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: an inclusion-policy line with a broad mandate. The unseen: the Roma pupils and families whose actual access to schooling and employment is advanced through the targeted scholarship and Roma self-government lines — both retained — rather than through a general policy programme.
Objection
"Roma inclusion needs sustained dedicated policy investment — a freeze is giving up."
Answer
The direct access programmes — Útravaló scholarships, the Roma Advanced College Network, the Roma scholarship programmes, and both tiers of the constitutional Roma self-government — are all retained in full. The freeze applies to the general inclusion-policy line, which is the layer of programme activity least traceable to individual benefit. Holding it flat pending an evidence review is not abandonment; it is a condition for finding out what in this line actually helps.
Share if you think inclusion money should reach individuals, not policy offices.
The analyst's verdict
Support for inclusion-policy and Roma nationality tasks
Rationale
A general inclusion-policy line; programme-mix knowledge problem applies. Held flat pending evidence review.
Transition mechanism
Hold the nominal allocation flat pending an evidence review of which inclusion-policy and Roma nationality task components demonstrably work.
Affected groups
Staff implementing inclusion-policy and Roma nationality tasks; Roma communities and other inclusion-policy beneficiaries; no immediate displacement.
Free Society Institute
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