From the 2026 budget audit
75.8 milliárd Ft in grid construction paid by every taxpayer, not just those connected.
The second-largest expenditure block in the chapter: general-tax funding of electricity and gas grid expansion, phased out over 3 years as the cost moves to regulated tariffs.
Roughly 18,980 Ft per taxpayer per year — 75,785 millió Ft in grid construction capital, funded by all and benefiting the specific users the new lines reach.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: new electricity and gas network reaching communities and premises not previously connected. The unseen: the wage-earner in a city already served, funding the extension that connects someone else's district — while the signal that would tell the operator which extensions are worth building is destroyed by the subsidy.
Objection
"Some areas would never be connected if the market had to fund it — rural communities depend on budget support."
Answer
The regulated tariff model is not the unsubsidised market: it pools the cost of new connections across all network users through a transparent regulated charge, administered by the network operator under a licence. The reform moves grid finance from the general budget — paid by everyone including those without gas or electricity — to the tariff base, paid by network users. Rural connectivity questions belong in the tariff design, not as a reason to keep general-tax grid funding.
Share if you think grid costs should be on your energy bill, where you can see them, not hidden in the national budget.
The analyst's verdict
Regional development tasks — Electricity and gas grid infrastructure development — capital
Rationale
This is the second-largest expenditure block in the chapter, and it deserves a precise mechanism reading. The transmission grid itself — the high-voltage backbone and the last-mile distribution network — has a genuine network-economic character: parallel competing wires to every house are not how the service is delivered. But state budget financing of grid expansion is a different question from the natural-monopoly character of the wires. Grid investment is normally funded by the regulated network operator and recovered through regulated network tariffs paid by the users who benefit from the connection — that is how the cost reaches the people who actually draw on the new capacity. Financing grid expansion from the general budget instead shifts the cost from connecting users onto the general taxpayer, and breaks the signal that tells the operator where new capacity is actually worth building. The phase-out moves grid-development financing back onto the regulated-tariff base where it belongs. It is gradual rather than immediate because grid projects are multi-year capital commitments: contracts are let, construction is staged, and a contractor mid-project has an enforceable claim. A 3-year linear phase-out lets in-flight grid contracts complete; net saving rises from 25,276.6 millió Ft in year 1 to the full 75,829.9 millió Ft in year 3, by which point new grid investment is on the network operator's balance sheet and the regulated tariff.
Transition mechanism
Linear over 3 years, tracking run-off of in-flight grid contracts. Net saving rises from 25,276.6 millió Ft in year 1 to the full 75,829.9 millió Ft in year 3, by which point new grid investment is on the network operator's balance sheet and the regulated tariff.
Affected groups
Grid-construction contractors with in-flight contracts (protected through run-off); the regulated network operator, which takes the financing function back; network users, who pay the cost of new capacity through tariffs rather than through general tax — a shift in who bears the cost, toward the people the capacity serves.
Free Society Institute
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