From the 2026 budget audit
270 millió Ft: a competitive call where an appointed committee sets the criteria.
A general grant fund administered by the MMA on a competitive-call basis — but the committee that scores the applications is the same academy that sets the criteria.
Roughly 67 Ft per taxpayer per year — 270 millió Ft of discretionary grant-making where the selector, the criteria, and the judgement all sit in the same appointed institution.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: the artists and projects awarded grants through the competitive call. The unseen: every applicant whose work was not to the committee's taste, and every taxpayer funding a selection process with no price signal on whether the funded artwork was worth funding over any other.
Objection
"A competitive grant process is transparent and fair — it's very different from opaque patronage."
Answer
A competitive call is more transparent than pure patronage, but the calculation problem is unchanged: there is no market price on the value of one funded artwork against another, only an adjudicator's judgement about what Hungarian art should look like. The fund is small, but the principle — that the state should not be a discretionary patron of the arts — scales to 270 millió Ft exactly as it does to a larger fund.
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The analyst's verdict
Grant Funds
Rationale
A general grant fund administered by the academy on a competitive-call basis. The competitive-call form does not change the underlying mechanism: an appointed committee scores applications against criteria it sets, and the calculation problem is unchanged — there is no market price on the value of one funded artwork against another, only an adjudicator's judgement. The fund is small, but the size of the line is not a criterion; the principle that the state should not be a discretionary patron of the arts scales to a 270 millió Ft fund exactly as it does to a larger one.
Transition mechanism
Eliminate in the 2026 cycle. In-flight grant awards are honoured to their contracted term; no new calls are issued.
Affected groups
Applicant artists and projects, who would seek private patronage, sponsorship, or earned revenue.
Free Society Institute
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