From the 2026 budget audit
A smaller version of the same allocation mechanism
220 millió Ft channelled through the regional development councils — the same discretionary capital-allocation mechanism as the main Fund, at smaller scale.
Roughly 55 Ft per taxpayer per year — 220 millió Ft total, on the same four-year phase-out glide as the main Regional Development Fund.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: a 220 millió Ft capital resource distributed through the councils to politically-selected projects. The unseen: the private investment that does not happen because that saving was redirected by a council facing an application queue rather than a market test.
Objection
"But regional development needs both a large fund and a complementary smaller resource for projects that fall below the main fund's threshold."
Answer
Whether 220 millió Ft or 65,000 millió Ft, the mechanism is the same: capital allocated by political selection rather than by a profit-and-loss test. Scale does not change the argument; it changes only the magnitude of the misallocation and the rent it creates for aligned applicants.
Share if you think a forint of public capital is subject to the same accountability test regardless of the fund it flows through.
The analyst's verdict
Development Resource of the Development Councils
Rationale
A second, smaller discretionary development resource channelled through the same regional development councils. It is the same mechanism as the Területfejlesztési Alap at smaller scale — politically-selected allocation of capital — and is classified identically, on the same four-year glide.
Transition mechanism
Linear phase-out over 4 years, parallel to the Területfejlesztési Alap and the councils' operating line.
Affected groups
As for the development councils above.
Free Society Institute
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