Part I — Situation overview

The Hormuz conflict is in its third week, and in the past 48 hours it has entered a new phase: the United States struck Iranian targets comprehensively for the fourth consecutive day, and according to the announcement of US president Donald Trump it has restored the naval blockade covering the entire Iranian coastline — according to the US military, with 20 warships and several hundred aircraft. In the past week Iran has attacked seven commercial ships in the area of the Strait of Hormuz; on Tuesday three tankers were attacked within a few hours, and Iranian counter-strikes hit the neighbouring Gulf states, among them Bahrain, home of the US 5th Fleet. To force negotiations, Trump threatened strikes on Iranian power plants and bridges — according to the Guardian’s observation, the destruction of civilian infrastructure would violate international law —, while he dropped his earlier plan of a 20 per cent “security fee” on shipments passing through the strait.

The domestic bill of the conflict has now become visible to everyone. According to the data of holtankoljak.hu, from Wednesday the wholesale price of 95-octane petrol rises by a gross 14 forints and that of diesel by 7 forints: the national average price of petrol moves from Tuesday’s 587 forints to around 601 forints per litre — crossing the 595-forint level that the “protected price”, phased out in June, had fixed as an official ceiling. Behind the rise stand the world market price of Brent crude, which climbed to a four-week high, and the weakening of the forint. The political debate reopened immediately: the Fidesz parliamentary group earlier proposed that the official prices remain in place as a safety price ceiling, while the government’s argument is that at the phase-out, economic development minister István Kapitány retained the power to cap retail fuel prices by decree if necessary — though the clause restricting the rule to vehicles with Hungarian licence plates was removed, which, alongside a possible price cap, could set off regional fuel tourism.

MIAK’s reading: the question is not whether the 14 forints hurts — it does —, but whether the state handles the external shock with price-fixing or with a targeted, data-driven response. The price-cap period of 2022–2024 showed the operating costs of the fixed price; the present situation is the first live test of whether a better toolkit exists.

Part II — Literature foundation

Before turning to MIAK’s proposals, it is worth fixing the interpretive frame. Years of Upheaval, the memoir of Henry Kissinger (German-born American diplomat, US Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977), is the first-hand history of the 1973 Arab oil embargo: its lesson is that the oil weapon is not a one-off price shock but a supply and alliance-coordination crisis lasting months, which the consumer countries could only manage with joint demand-side discipline and procurement cooperation. In A hiány (Economics of Shortage), János Kornai (Hungarian-born economist, author of the theory of the soft budget constraint; professor at Harvard between 1986 and 2002) analyses the operation of administrative price regulation: with differentiated products the fixed price slides into hidden price rises and quality degradation, and over the longer term what Kornai calls the trap of price stability emerges — the longer the state defends the unchanged price, the greater the social tension accompanying every later, unavoidable adjustment. The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) World Economic Outlook 2025, in turn, shows with fresh model calculations that commodity-price shocks spread through the economy via production networks: the more deeply energy is embedded in inter-sectoral linkages, the greater the effect passing through to consumption. The detailed literature treatment — by author — can be found in the 6.4 Literature in detail section.

Part III — MIAK’s concrete proposal

MIAK proposes three measurable measures for managing the energy-price shock.

3.1 Activating the energy-price-shock protocol with a public price monitor (within 14 days)

MIAK proposes the immediate activation of the energy-price-shock preparedness plan (G25): the state should publish weekly the full price-transmission chain — Brent quotation, wholesale price, average pump price, tax content —, so that it is visible how much of the price rise is the world market, how much the exchange rate and how much the retail margin. Threshold values fixed in advance (for example a sustained deviation of more than 5 per cent from the regional average price) automatically trigger the next step: a competition-authority margin inquiry, then, as a last resort, a time-limited intervention. This stepped, rule-based response follows the logic of the data-driven budget (G1): what decides is not which camp shouts louder, but whether the data crosses the threshold.

3.2 Targeted compensation instead of general price-fixing (within 30 days)

MIAK proposes that if the government intervenes, it should do so not with a general price cap but with targeted compensation: a temporary increase in the kilometre-based tax allowance of commuters who depend on a car to get to work, and faster excise refunds for haulage and agricultural businesses. According to the experience of 2022–2024, the general price cap gave the most to households that drive a lot and typically have higher incomes, distorted the market, and caused supply disruptions at the pumps — in the Kornai frame (see 6.4.2) this was not an implementation error but the operating logic of the fixed price. The ministerial price-cap power should remain an emergency brake: if applied, with a sunset date fixed in advance — the day declared in legislation on which the measure lapses of itself, unless the legislator extends it beforehand — and with the fuel-tourism risk managed.

3.3 A stock and diversification report before the heating season (within 60 days)

The Hormuz lesson is structural: fossil import dependence is the vulnerability itself. MIAK proposes that within 60 days the government publish a stock and diversification report: the level of strategic fuel and gas stocks measured in days, the contracted capacities of the Adriatic and southern procurement routes, and the timetable for the next 12 months (K7 — energy-market shock resilience). The quantification of the additional inflationary effect should be included in the planning documents of the 2027 budget (G23), while the medium-term answer is the acceleration of the energy transition (K2): the most important long-term legacy of the 1973 crisis described by Kissinger (see 6.4.1) was precisely the energy-efficiency turn of the consumer countries.

The common principle of the three proposals: against an external price shock, protection comes not from denying the price but from transparent transmission, targeted protection and the structural reduction of exposure — the crisis justifies not the postponement of climate goals but the faster dismantling of import dependence.

Part IV — Expected effects and risks

Dimension Expected effect Risk
Economy The stepped protocol makes the state response predictable; the publicity of price transmission disciplines retail pricing In a protracted blockade, fuel price rises feed through transport costs into food inflation
Society Targeted compensation protects commuters in need and small businesses, at a fraction of the budgetary cost A public used to the price cap may experience the targeted instrument as “non-help” — a communication deficit
Budget Avoiding general price support saves spending of a billion-forint order of magnitude The rearrangement of excise and VAT revenues due to the price rise, and the cost of compensation, worsen this year’s deficit path

The main matter for consideration is the tension between speed and targeting. The general price cap can be introduced overnight and is immediately perceptible to everyone; targeted compensation requires administration and can take weeks to reach the eligible. That is exactly why the proposal can tip to the risk side if the government delays building the targeted instruments: in a sudden, large wave of price rises, only the bad but fast instrument — the price cap — remains. The point of the protocol is that the targeted toolkit be ready before the next shock.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth tracking? (proposed KPIs)

MIAK proposes tracking four key performance indicators (KPIs):

  • Price-transmission lag: in how many days the pump price follows the change in the Brent quotation upwards and downwards — the asymmetry between the two is the measure of retail pricing discipline.
  • Regional price deviation: the sustained deviation of the Hungarian average price from the average of the Visegrád countries — target: within ±5 per cent.
  • Targeting of compensation: what percentage of the support paid out reaches households in the bottom three income quintiles and micro- and small businesses — target: at least 60%.
  • Stock level: the level of the strategic fuel stock measured in days at the start of the heating season — published publicly.

5.2 Summary

MIAK’s message to the decision-maker: the petrol price does not depend on domestic decisions, but the manner of the response does — the activation of the energy-price-shock protocol, the building of targeted compensation and the stock-diversification report together give the answer that protects while distorting the least. Of MIAK’s foundational values, data-drivenness and transparency prevail here: data-drivenness because the only fair way to decide the price-cap debate is to confront the transmission data and the experience of 2022–2024 with the promises; and transparency because the public price monitor and stock report are what make both scaremongering and trivialisation verifiable at once.

Part VI — Justifications and further sources

6.1 The press framing by spectrum

The left-liberal and public-affairs band put the war escalation on its front pages: Telex reported on the latest American strikes (“The United States struck Iran again”), 24.hu highlighted the ultimatum character of the Trump interview (“Trump: Iran has no other choice”), and ATV carried the announcement of the blockade. In the economic band, Portfolio analysed the Iranian attacks on maritime trade (“Iran has turned brutal: they are bombing the traffic of the Strait of Hormuz, there is huge trouble”), while HVG presented the market background of the price rise — Brent at a four-week high, a weakening forint.

The framing of the pro-government-conservative band is, by contrast, domestic-political: Mandiner and Magyar Nemzet both run to the point that fuel will be more expensive even than the protected price phased out by the Tisza government (“Petrol prices rise sharply…”, “From tomorrow fuel will be more expensive than the protected price was”) — the emphasis is not on the war but on criticism of the timing of the price-cap phase-out. Mandiner also carried the foreign-policy thread, relying on the Guardian and flagging the international-law problem of Trump’s power-plant and bridge threat. Népszava carried the American strikes on its front page (title-level reference only — the portal’s article page was not machine-readable).

6.2 Facts and data

Indicator Value Source
National average price of 95-octane petrol (14 July 2026) 587 HUF/litre holtankoljak.hu
National average price of diesel (14 July 2026) 608 HUF/litre holtankoljak.hu
Wednesday’s wholesale price rise petrol +14 HUF, diesel +7 HUF holtankoljak.hu
The protected price phased out in June petrol 595 HUF, diesel 615 HUF press reports (HVG, Mandiner)
Commercial ships attacked by Iran (in 7 days) 7 CENTCOM statement (MTI/24.hu)
US forces maintaining the blockade 20 warships, several hundred aircraft CENTCOM statement (MTI/24.hu)
Hungarian annual inflation in December 2025 4.3% KSH

For the order of magnitude of the inflationary pass-through of the energy-price shock, the model calculations of the IMF and the OECD provide the frame: a commodity-price rise spreads through production networks into consumer prices with a delay but broadly — which is why it matters at which point of the transmission the state response intervenes.

6.3 Policy dimensions

  • Economy (programme points) — the energy-price-shock preparedness plan (G25), the data-driven budget (G1) and the public-debt sustainability framework (G23) provide the fiscal skeleton of the response;
  • Foreign policy (programme points) — the foreign-policy crisis-management protocol (KP7) and the geopolitical situation-analysis capacity (KP13) are the frame of conflict monitoring;
  • Environment and climate (programme points) — energy-market shock resilience (K7) and the energy-transition plan (K2) are the structural response.

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 Henry Kissinger: Years of Upheaval

Kissinger’s memoir shows from the inside how the 1973 Middle East war became a global energy crisis: the Arab oil embargo and the OPEC price explosion that followed caught the consumer countries unprepared, and the crisis swelled into supply disruptions lasting months and then economic adjustment lasting years. The book carries two lessons still valid today. The first: the deployment of the oil weapon is rarely a one-off event — the price premium persists as long as the risk persists, so economic policy must plan not for days but for quarters. The second: the consumer countries got on top of the crisis when they switched from panicked national procurement outbidding one another to coordinated demand reduction and a common energy policy — the institutional legacy of this is the International Energy Agency and the system of strategic stockpiling. Translated to the present Hormuz blockade: the strength of the Hungarian response lies not in isolated national price intervention but in the combination of stockpiling, diversification and EU coordination.

📖 Source: Henry Kissinger: Years of Upheaval (the work is under copyright, so we reference it by paraphrase, without verbatim quotation)

6.4.2 Kornai János: A hiány

Kornai described the internal logic of administrative price regulation while analysing the shortage phenomena of the socialist economy, but the mechanisms are system-independent. With standardised mass products the fixed price is still administrable, but with differentiated products the producer circumvents the ceiling with hidden price rises — introducing a new product variant or quietly degrading quality. Even more important is the phenomenon Kornai calls the trap of price stability: the longer and the more conspicuously the state defends the unchanged price, the more it becomes an expectation, and the greater the shock to public sentiment accompanying every later, unavoidable adjustment — prices rigidify while the tension accumulates. The trajectory of the Hungarian fuel price cap of 2022–2024 — the price jump appearing all at once at the phase-out, the closures of filling stations, the supply disruptions — is a textbook example of this trap; in the present debate, then, the question is not whether the price cap “worked” in the short term, but who pays for the tension released at its phase-out.

📖 Source: Kornai János: A hiány (Economics of Shortage) (the work is under copyright, so we reference it by paraphrase, without verbatim quotation)

6.4.3 IMF: World Economic Outlook 2025

The IMF volume analyses the spread of commodity-price shocks with production-network models: the effect of the shock on consumption is the greater, the more deeply the affected commodity is embedded in inter-sectoral linkages — and energy is the most network-embedded input. Because of the small, open, energy-importing structure of the Hungarian economy, the model’s lesson is direct: the fuel price rise does not stop at the pump but appears in consumer prices with a delay, in several waves, through haulage, the food chain and manufacturing. This is the argument for the stepped protocol fixed in advance: intervention should be decided not on the political visibility of the pump price but on the additional inflation estimated for the whole chain.

📖 Source: IMF: World Economic Outlook 2025 (freely accessible official publication)

6.5 International comparison

In the 2022 energy crisis the EU member states went down two kinds of path: general price interventions (the Hungarian fuel price cap, the Spanish–Portuguese gas price cap) proved spectacular in the short term but expensive and distorting, while the targeted models — the French “commuting cheque”, the German one-off energy payment below an income threshold — protected the most exposed groups at a fraction of the budgetary cost. According to the European Commission’s ex-post evaluations, a significant share of the price subsidies landed with higher-income households that consume more. The Hormuz crisis now poses the same choice again, live — MIAK’s proposal is the domestic adaptation of the targeted models, before the next price wave.

Economy

  • G25 — Energy-price-shock preparedness plan
  • G1 — Data-driven budget
  • G23 — Public-debt sustainability framework

Environment and climate

  • K7 — Energy-market shock resilience
  • K2 — Energy-transition plan

Foreign policy

  • KP7 — Foreign-policy crisis-management protocol
  • KP13 — Geopolitical situation-analysis capacity

6.7 List of sources

Press sources (MIAK press monitor, 15 July 2026 — topic 2):

Knowledge-base references (literature):

  • 📖 Henry Kissinger: Years of Upheaval
  • 📖 Kornai János: A hiány (Economics of Shortage)
  • 📖 IMF: World Economic Outlook 2025

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Economy (programme points; programme point ID: G25, G1, G23)
  • MIAK policy area: Environment and climate (programme points; programme point ID: K7, K2)
  • MIAK policy area: Foreign policy (programme points; programme point ID: KP7, KP13)
  • MIAK press monitor, 15 July 2026 — topic 2, score: 92/100

Additional public data sources:

  • holtankoljak.hu and MEKH fuel price data
  • IEA Oil Market Report; Brent futures quotations
  • KSH consumer price index; MNB inflation report

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