From the 2026 budget audit
34 milliárd Ft paid separately for fuel — so operators don't have to economise on it.
Carving out energy as a dedicated reimbursement line means the rail and bus operators' entire electricity and diesel bill is guaranteed by the state — removing every incentive to use less.
About 8,730 Ft per taxpayer per year — 34,000.0 millió Ft total. Year-1 net saving of 11,333.3 millió Ft; the energy cost folds back into the operators' reimbursed cost base over three years.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: trains and buses running despite high energy costs, with the fuel bill covered by a separate state line. The unseen: the incentive to manage energy efficiently — to invest in more efficient rolling stock, to optimise scheduling, to reduce deadhead kilometres — that disappears when the energy bill is reimbursed in full on a dedicated line. The cost of the inefficiency is carried by every taxpayer; the operator faces no price signal.
Objection
"Energy prices are volatile — operators can't plan if energy costs can spike beyond their control."
Answer
Volatility risk is real and is already managed by folding energy costs into the cost-reimbursement framework, where the reimbursement is benchmarked against an efficient cost. A dedicated free-standing energy line is different: it reimburses whatever the operators spend on energy, on a dedicated line, without any benchmark. That removes the incentive to economise. Folding the cost back into the main reimbursement — where it is benchmarked and tendered alongside the rest of operating cost — addresses volatility without eliminating the efficiency signal.
Share if you think transport operators should face the same energy costs as everyone else — and manage them.
The analyst's verdict
Support for the energy cost of transport public services
Rationale
This line — 34,000.0 millió Ft — funds the energy cost of transport public services: the traction electricity, diesel, and fuel cost of running the rail and bus networks. The line is, in substance, a component of the operating cost of the passenger services already funded by the cost-reimbursement and compensation lines above — energy is one of the inputs into running a train or a bus, alongside crew, rolling stock, and maintenance. Carving the energy cost out as a separate support line is an artefact of how the budget responded to the 2022-2023 energy price shock: when fuel and electricity prices spiked, a separate energy-support line absorbed the increase rather than letting it flow through the operators' cost base. The honest classification is that the energy cost of a transport service is part of that service's cost and belongs inside the service's own funding line, not as a free-standing support. A separate, open-ended energy-cost-support line also blunts every incentive the operators have to manage energy efficiently — if the energy bill is reimbursed in full on a dedicated line, there is no pressure to economise on it. The line is phased out over three years by folding the energy cost back into the operators' cost base, where it sits as one input among others and is subject to the same benchmarking and tendering discipline recommended for the cost-reimbursement lines. This is a reclassification, not a service cut: the trains and buses continue to run, and their energy is paid for as part of their cost rather than on a separate line.
Transition mechanism
Phase-Out over 3 years, linear glide. The energy cost is folded back into the rail and bus operators' cost base over three years, where it is reimbursed as part of the (benchmarked, tendered) operating cost rather than on a dedicated support line. Year 1 folds one-third, Year 2 two-thirds, Year 3 the full amount. Net saving as a free-standing line rises from 11,333.3 millió Ft in Year 1 to 34,000.0 millió Ft in Year 3 — with the genuine energy cost reappearing inside the operators' cost base, where the benchmarking discipline applies to it.
Affected groups
None adversely. The rail and bus services continue; their energy cost is funded as part of their operating cost rather than on a separate line, and the operators face an incentive to manage energy use that a full-reimbursement line removed.
Free Society Institute
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