From the 2026 budget audit
200 millió Ft honoured in full — because the obligation was earned, not granted.
Annuities and compensation for uranium and coal miners whose working lives created the entitlement: a closed cohort, fully protected, winding down only as actuarial mortality closes the obligation.
Roughly 50 Ft per taxpayer per year — 200 millió Ft in accrued individual entitlements, phased down by cohort mortality over roughly 20 years, with no policy lever shortening the schedule.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: elderly former miners drawing the annuity or compensation their work in the industry created. The unseen: the contrast with discretionary programmes elsewhere in this chapter — this line is not a preference or a subsidy; it is an accrued obligation, and the framework treats those differently.
Objection
"Why is this classified as a phase-out if the obligation is honoured in full?"
Answer
Because the cohort is closed — no new entrants, no new eligibility. The 'phase-out' here is not a policy decision; it is the actuarial fact that a closed group of elderly former miners diminishes over time. The obligation runs to zero when the last entitlement is satisfied, not before. Every individual payment is protected for life; the aggregate falls only because the people entitled to it age and pass away.
Share if you think a promise made to workers who earned it should be kept — and that this is how you tell it apart from a subsidy.
The analyst's verdict
Assumption of uranium and coal miners' annuities and other compensation obligations
Rationale
This line funds annuity and compensation obligations the state assumed toward uranium and coal miners — health-damage compensation and supplementary annuities for a workforce in an industry that has largely closed. This is exactly the case where the framework's rule-of-law method governs: the obligation is an accrued individual entitlement of identifiable people, earned through work already done, and the classical-liberal protection of good-faith reliance means it is honoured in full. There are no new entrants — uranium and coal mining of the relevant kind has ended — so the line is a closed-class commitment that falls naturally as the cohort ages. No active reform is needed and none is proposed; the "phase-out" here is simply the actuarial fact that a closed cohort of elderly former miners diminishes over time.
Transition mechanism
Cohort mortality over roughly 20 years. The bridge cost tracks the share of the original cohort still alive and drawing the annuity — near-full in the early years, running off faster as the cohort reaches advanced age. No policy lever sets the schedule; actuarial mortality does.
Affected groups
Former uranium and coal miners drawing the annuity, and their dependants. They are protected in full for life; the line is not cut, it ends when the obligation naturally ends.
Free Society Institute
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