Monday 7 September 2026 – Sunday 13 September 2026 · 2026, week 37

The week in one sentence

This week accountability visibly sped up, while the bill arrived from two directions: the energy-price shock seeping in from the Middle East and from Moscow, and the record deficit of August. On all three threads the same thing emerged: the announcement is fast, but credibility comes from the rule of procedure.

MIAK’s weekly reflection

The noise of the week was speed. In a single week five major corruption cases entered a new stage, ten Russian diplomats were expelled, and a new diesel support was launched. A call for applications was issued for the head of all sixty school districts, and candidates were nominated for five seats on the Constitutional Court. The signal of the week, however, is not the pace but a recurring pattern. In almost every field the same question remained open: under what rule announced in advance is the decision made, and against what will its success be measured? The investigating authorities are speeding up. The new asset recovery office, however, was drawn into a credibility dispute already over the selection of its leadership. The direction of the diesel support is defensible, but it is tied to a calendar date, not to a price threshold. And about the nomination of constitutional judges a well-known constitutional lawyer said outright that it follows the same pattern that had earlier been objected to on the other side.

MIAK’s yardstick in this situation is independent of political side and can be summed up in one sentence: a procedure is good if it can be repeated under an opposite political majority without the institution being harmed. This week what was least missing from most announcements was the forint amount, the number of suspects or the deadline. What was missing most often was the set of criteria and the measurement after the fact. This is not a peculiarity of the current government but a long-standing gap in Hungarian public policy culture. The first autumn after a change of government, however, is the rare moment when it can be filled cheaply.

The main threads of the week

1. Accountability and selection: the pace is quickening, the yardstick is the procedure

The thread was in the top ten on all six days. On Monday the internal memo of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Covid rapid tests bought at three times the price became public, and it emerged that the new leadership of the central bank, the Hungarian National Bank (MNB), is filing criminal complaints over the affairs of the previous leadership. The same day the minister for the economy and energy announced a criminal complaint over the earlier state development bank financing of a haulage company, the tax authority NAV detained further people in the NKA case, and a corruption trial with 54 defendants restarted. On Tuesday the Prime Minister’s Office filed a criminal complaint over the communication spending of the Sovereignty Protection Office, and on Friday the police opened an investigation on suspicion of breach of trust. On Thursday and Friday the investigation entered a new stage in several cases. There are eight suspects in the Volán bus procurement case, the number of suspects in the Óbuda corruption case rose to 47, and one of the wealthiest Hungarian businessmen was questioned as a suspect at the Central Chief Prosecutor’s Office for Investigations. A suspicion is an act of the investigating authority or the prosecution, not a judgment. Guilt is decided by the court.

Detailed analyses: Speeding up is needed, but not in any manner: every accelerating element in asset recovery needs a guarantee element beside it (MIAK blog, 7 September 2026) · Four accountability threads on a single day: a criminal complaint is not a result, a final judgment is (MIAK blog, 8 September 2026)

In the second half of the week the thread turned into the question of selection. The selection criteria for the president of the National Asset Recovery and Asset Protection Office (NVVH) became disputed after the fact, and the applications for vice-president had to be re-advertised. On Friday a call for applications was opened for the head of all sixty school district centres. For the five seats on the Constitutional Court, Tisza and Mi Hazánk nominated candidates; Parliament decides on them on Tuesday by a two-thirds majority. From then on the elected constitutional judges cannot be instructed by anyone. On Saturday it also emerged that the European Commission is assessing the amendment to the Fundamental Law terminating the mandate of the head of state as part of the entire rule-of-law reform process. The quality of the current selection procedures will therefore also be part of the credibility of the reform package in Brussels.

Detailed analyses: Five constitutional judges in a single vote: the question is not the list of names but the rule of selection (MIAK blog, 12 September 2026) · Sixty school-district heads at once: meanwhile the application requirements were lowered (MIAK blog, 12 September 2026) · County, government commissioner, prime ministerial salary: renaming back is worth something only if a cost balance and a formula come with it (MIAK blog, 7 September 2026)

2. The energy-price shock has returned — and now it has a foreign-policy price too

The thread featured in the top ten for five days, and by the end of the week it reached first place twice. On Monday two competing instruments appeared for the same problem. The Prime Minister announced targeted support for those filling up with diesel, while the Fidesz–KDNP parliamentary group submitted its bill on restoring the regulated fuel price. The same day Politico, citing an internal Rosatom document, wrote that Paks II is slipping further. This is an internal document, not an authority finding. On Tuesday Hungary expelled ten Russian diplomats. By Thursday the consequences were already visible: the exchange price of natural gas rose to a four-year high, above 80 euros per megawatt-hour, domestic storage was 71 per cent full, and the Prime Minister stated that a Russian mirror measure is expected.

Detailed analyses: Regulated price or targeted diesel support: two instruments for the same problem, and only one of them can be measured (MIAK blog, 8 September 2026) · The expulsion of ten Russian diplomats: the event is there, the doctrine is missing (MIAK blog, 9 September 2026)

On Friday the decision was made too: until December, owners of diesel cars that are not high-powered receive automatic support of 5,000 forints a month. According to Mol, bringing back the regulated price would cause supply shortages within one or two days, while hauliers are protesting at being left out. At the end of the week the second wave arrived. After drone attacks Saudi Arabia closed its oil pipeline bypassing the Strait of Hormuz, and Yemen’s Houthis gained a new position at the Bab el-Mandeb strait on the Red Sea. And according to a calculation by the energy-market research institute REKK, the summer Paks outage caused an additional electricity cost of 37.4 billion forints. In MIAK’s reading the targeted transfer is the right direction. The December expiry, however, follows a political rather than an economic logic, because a supply shock does not end with the calendar.

Detailed analysis: 37.4 billion is the price of the Paks outage, and a new oil shock is under way: who pays the bill for unpreparedness? (MIAK blog, 13 September 2026)

3. The budget’s reality check: record deficit, euro timetable, Treasury buffer

This thread also featured on five days. On Tuesday the parliamentary debate began on the amended 2026 budget bill submitted by the Government, centred on the 500-billion Contingency Fund. The same day the August general government data was published. It showed a record deficit, increased in part by the pre-financing of EU projects. And the finance minister declared that a deficit of 7.5 per cent is not acceptable even in the short term, and that a significant reduction is coming in 2027.

Detailed analyses: The Contingency Fund and the health surplus: the amended budget will be credible only if a rule and an outcome indicator come with it (MIAK blog, 8 September 2026) · A record deficit of which 124 billion is the real figure: the breakdown matters more than the headline number (MIAK blog, 9 September 2026)

On Thursday the Economists’ Itinerant Conference brought the turn of the thread. The central bank governor spoke of a “successful rather than fast” introduction of the euro, and the finance minister announced that the new medium-term fiscal path will be submitted by mid-October. Its aim is to keep the EU’s Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) from reaching the sanctions stage. The same day the European Central Bank raised interest rates. On Saturday two data points pointing in opposite directions arrived: the balance of the Treasury Single Account grew fivefold, to above 5,000 billion forints, while according to Eurostat Hungary’s productivity has grown the most slowly in the region since 2010. In MIAK’s view the two must be read together. The money sitting in the account is short-term room for manoeuvre, and may partly come from issued debt as well. The productivity gap, however, is a decades-long constraint, and no piece of good liquidity news is an answer to it.

Detailed analysis: Five thousand billion in the Treasury account: where did the buffer come from, and why is productivity not rising? (MIAK blog, 13 September 2026)

What we did not publish separately

Under the trigger-based publishing philosophy MIAK does not write a separate post on every top topic, but it sees them and keeps track of them. This week the following were left without a separate analysis, typically because of the daily quota limit or the recent coverage of the topic:

  • The legitimacy of the public media board and the fate of state media assets (MIAK policy area: Culture) — it featured on five days: the Independent Public Media Board was elected and sworn in, one of the opposition candidates withdrew, Mandiner, which had come into state ownership, shut down, and an overpricing allegation arose around Antenna Hungária. The formal independence of the board and its broad acceptance are two separate questions.
  • Waiting lists and health regulation (MIAK policy area: Healthcare) — the number of people waiting more than 60 days for hip and knee replacements rose. Meanwhile the consultation on the foetal heartbeat decree closed, from 2027 a single quality-control authority is coming for both public and private providers, and this year 23 infants have already died of congenital syphilis. The 2027 waiting-time target cannot be verified without a trajectory.
  • Industrial environmental risks (MIAK policy area: Environment and climate) — the state is providing 657 million forints for hazard prevention at the Dunai Vasmű steelworks under liquidation, in Iváncsa the local government had 55 wells examined, and researchers turned to the Constitutional Court over building on the Balaton shore. The common point: risk arising alongside private profit ultimately becomes a public cost.
  • The publicity of classified government decisions (MIAK policy area: Transparency and anti-corruption policy) — the first 13 of the classified government decisions of the past 16 years were made public, and according to plans around a hundred more will follow. Instead of selective publication, publicity of the complete register would be the system-level solution.
  • The data protection inspection of the Gondosóra programme (MIAK policy area: Digitalisation and AI regulation) — the data protection authority launched an ex-post inspection of the data processing of a state alert system affecting several hundred thousand elderly people. The data protection impact assessment should have been completed before the devices were distributed.
  • Review of railway procurement (MIAK policy area: Transport and infrastructure) — a railway framework of 3,500 billion was announced. It emerged that a locomotive framework contract allegedly terminated in 2023 had in fact never been terminated. In addition, an earlier instruction on the maintenance of used Swiss multiple units was withdrawn, and a life-cycle cost calculation was prescribed.
  • V4 restart and Ukrainian accession conditions (MIAK policy area: Foreign policy) — at the V4 summit in Bratislava the Prime Minister tied support for further accession negotiating chapters to concrete Ukrainian steps concerning the rights of Hungarians in Transcarpathia. Without a measurable list of criteria this may look like veto politics from the outside.
  • Automotive exposure in Győr (MIAK policy area: Employment policy and the labour market) — the future of the Audi plant in Győr was raised, and with the closure of a Győr supplier nearly 500 workers lose their jobs. This is the first major local sign of the industry’s transformation.

Policy area focus — what the press covered most

The policy area distribution of the week’s 60 top topics (by occurrence):

Policy area Weekly top-10 occurrences
Transparency and anti-corruption policy 24
Economy 23
Public administration and e-government 22
Territorial inequality and rural policy 14
Foreign policy 14
Justice 13

This week the press monitor was completed on six days. No monitor was prepared on Thursday 10 September; that day’s events were processed by Friday’s monitor. Of the 60 top topics, 53 had a date-linked decision, data release or procedural step behind them, not merely an opinion.

This is a weekly summary. The in-depth analyses of individual topics can be found in the daily posts.

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