Part I — Situation overview

On the night of 9 August 2026 Portfolio reported that the government decision on the review of the Integrated Transport Development Operational Programme (IKOP) Plus had appeared in the Hungarian Official Gazette — with this the EU co-financed projects of the Gábor Baross Railway Development Plan can officially start. The same news item also announced another, at first sight unrelated procedure: applications can be submitted until 16 August for the post of president and the four vice-president posts of the National Asset Recovery and Protection Authority (NVVH — the authority set up to uncover unlawfully diverted public assets and to initiate their recovery), the candidates will be heard by the end of the month, and the decision may also be taken. Within a single week, therefore, it will be decided with which projects a development programme worth several hundred billion forints starts, and who leads the authority whose procedures concern high-value asset cases.

In the same week the railway company did something exemplary in a third, smaller matter. The felling of trees along the Zugló railway line provoked residents’ and professional protest, whereupon Dávid Vitézy, Minister for Transport and Investment, had the work stopped, and the MÁV group decided on a full review of its green space management practice. For the first time in the company’s history it advertised a chief landscape architect post — according to the call with a higher education degree in the relevant field, at least five years’ professional and three years’ management experience, with an application deadline at the end of August. The professional justification is also public: the present, decades-old rule prohibits vegetation higher than four metres in a 7-7 metre strip measured from the overhead line of electrified tracks, but it makes no distinction between trees standing on level ground and those on the side of a railway embankment, even though their risk of falling differs. A small matter — and precisely for that reason a good basis for comparison: here the requirement and the reasoning were made public before the decision.

The week, however, was not about this in the public sphere but about a test train. Balázs Németh, MP for Fidesz, claimed that the minister travelled back from the Serbian border “on his own special train”, and compared him to Rákosi and Kádár; in his reply the minister wrote that he and his colleagues boarded a test run between Kelebia and Budapest examining the adequacy of the overhead line, in which the management of MÁV and representatives of the authority also took part, that there was occupational safety training, and that testing records were produced. According to the explanation the nostalgia carriages were included in the train set so that the test run would not take a passenger carriage out of service. MIAK has nothing to add to the dispute and does not wish to: the substantive observation is that the greatest transport publicity of the week went not to the order of a project list worth several hundred billion but to two nostalgia carriages. Yet the stake is in the order — in whether ten years from now the same questions will have to be asked about these investments as we now ask about the developments of the previous cycle.

Part II — Literature foundation

The situation has three theoretical cross-sections, and all three lead to the same place. The central thesis of The Effective Executive by Peter F. Drucker (Austrian-American management thinker, founder of the methodology of organisational efficiency measurement) is that executive performance stands or falls on priority setting: whoever does not decide in advance what comes first and what is left out gets nothing done — this is the question of the order of the development project list. Corruption and Government by Susan Rose-Ackerman (American economist and lawyer, a leading researcher of the institutional analysis of corruption) shows why it is precisely capital-intensive large projects that are the riskiest: not in the procurement phase but already at the selection of the project, because an expensive and complex investment in itself creates an opportunity for rent-seeking. And Kautilya (author of ancient Indian statecraft, known as the author of the 4th–3rd century BC statecraft handbook Arthashastra) provides the third cross-section: observing the activity of officials after the fact is practically impossible, and therefore the rule has to be drawn in advance, not the fault sought afterwards. The detailed treatment of the literature — author by author, with quotations — can be found in the 6.4 Literature in detail section.

📖 Source: Peter F. Drucker: The Effective Executive; Susan Rose-Ackerman: Corruption and Government; Kautilya: Arthashastra

Part III — MIAK’s concrete proposal

MIAK proposes three measurable measures, all three for the few-week window now open. The proposals are deliberately modest: none of them slows the development and none of them postpones the leadership decision — they only ask that the standard be readable before the decision.

3.1 A public hearing and publication of programmes for the five leadership posts of the asset authority (before the decision, by 31 August)

The application deadline is 16 August, the hearing is due by the end of the month — the conditions of publicity can therefore still be created. MIAK proposes that three elements of the selection be published: the evaluation criteria before the hearing, the candidates’ professional programmes on the day of the hearing, and the written minutes of the hearing within five days following the decision. This is not distrust towards the candidates but the authority’s own interest: the most important instrument of the head of a body acting in high-value asset cases is credibility, and credibility is given by the documented professionalism of the selection, not by the fact of being appointed. The KI7 official selection and rotation system programme point fixes precisely this principle, and the A6 strengthening checks and balances programme point its institutional frame. MIAK demanded the same standard of the appointments of earlier cycles as well — consistency of principle can now be demonstrated.

3.2 Publication of the railway project list and the calculation behind it before the contracts are signed (within 60 days)

The funding tap has opened, but the contracts have not yet been concluded — this is the moment when the conditions of accountability are decided. MIAK proposes that the transport ministry publish the list of projects entering the programme, and alongside it the calculation underpinning the order: the estimated passenger number forecast, freight traffic data, the expected improvement in journey time and the estimated investment cost for each project. The KO4 data-based railway development prioritisation programme point already formulates this at the level of principle; the present proposal adds only that the calculation should be public before the contracts are signed, because afterwards it is good only for justification. According to Rose-Ackerman’s analysis (see 6.4.2) the greatest risk arises precisely at project selection, not in the procurement phase — therefore the A2 public procurement transparency programme point is not enough in itself, and the A1 public money dashboard is useful if the project-level justification is included in it as well.

3.3 Generalising the model of the recent chief landscape architect call to every state leadership post (from the next round of calls)

MÁV’s chief landscape architect call has unintentionally created a good practice: it stated the eligibility requirement in advance and in figures — a degree in the relevant field, at least five years’ professional and three years’ management experience — and also formulated the professional justification for the post publicly. MIAK proposes that this form become a minimum requirement for every state and state-owned company leadership call: numerical eligibility conditions, the professional justification for the post, and an application deadline at least twenty calendar days before the decision. According to the KI8 Drucker-style efficiency measurement in public administration programme point, what we measure is what can be managed — yet in leadership selection today there is typically nothing to measure, because the requirement emerges afterwards from the person appointed. This proposal is the cheapest of the three, and its effect the longest-lasting: it gives a starting point for every later establishment of an authority.

The three proposals are held together by a single principle: the publicity of the prior standard is worth more than the severity of subsequent investigation. According to Drucker, executive work is the prior settling of priorities; according to Rose-Ackerman, the risk of large projects arises at selection; and according to Kautilya, observing the official after the fact is a hopeless undertaking. All three say the same thing in a different language: the rule has to be written before the decision. It is precisely those few weeks that are here now in which this can still be done — from September we can speak only of holding to account.

Part IV — Expected effects and risks

Dimension Expected effect Risk
Public administration Leadership selection becomes documentable and comparable; the authority starts not with a personal dispute but with a professional programme A public hearing may deter candidates coming from the private sector; the minutes obligation may become a formality if the hearing consists of questions agreed in advance
Economy Publishing the project-level justification improves the quality of investment decisions, and the market can also plan better with the expected calls The publicity of the calculations may generate disputes in the regions of the projects left out; detailed publication also gives preparation time to bidders, which can be an advantage for skilful players
Society It will be visible whether the development order follows from data or from bargaining; local communities can contribute substantively If after publication the order nonetheless changes without justification, the public’s disappointment does more damage than the absence of publication would have done

The most important question to weigh in the package is timing. Suspending the start of a development programme for the sake of further publicity would be a bad trade: delay is a real cost, paid by passengers. MIAK therefore does not ask for the process to be stopped but for the documents to be published in parallel — the project list and the calculation have to be produced for the decision anyway, and the proposal is merely that the finished material should not remain an internal document. The same is true of leadership selection: the deadlines are given, the hearing takes place, the only question is whether the door will be open.

The proposal tips to the risk side if publicity crowds out substantive deliberation. A leadership hearing becomes worthless if, because of publicity, the real professional questions are left out and only a measured surface remains — this danger is reduced by the minutes and the prior fixing of the criteria, because in this way the content of the hearing can also be compared with the call. And in the case of the project list what has to be avoided is that publication becomes a post-decision “communication product”: if the list appears after the contracts are signed, the proposal has lost its essence.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth tracking? (proposed KPIs)

The performance indicators (KPIs) below show whether the window now open has been used. These are proposals, not government decisions.

  • 1 month: whether the evaluation criteria for the asset authority’s five leadership posts were public before the hearing, and whether the minutes are available after the decision (yes/no).
  • 6 months: whether the railway project list is available with project-level justification; it is worth tracking in how many projects a passenger number forecast and an estimated cost appear together.
  • 12 months: in what percentage of state and state-owned company leadership calls the eligibility requirement was set out in advance and in figures.
  • 24 months: by how much the actual cost and deadline of the programme’s first contracts differ from the published estimate — this is the ex-post impact assessment that decides whether the priority order was a good one.

5.2 Summary

MIAK’s request to the decision-maker consists of three independent steps that can be carried out in the same month: public criteria and minutes for the leadership selection at the asset authority, project-level justification for the railway development list before the contracts, and a numerical eligibility requirement in every state leadership call. And it asks the public to direct its attention to the order and to the standard, not to the nostalgia carriage — because the week’s dispute entertained everyone while the preparation of the substantive decisions was under way.

The proposal engages two MIAK foundational values. Accountability because accountability is not a question of subsequent investigation but of the standard fixed in advance: where there are no published criteria, there is nothing afterwards against which to hold anyone to account, and the investigation necessarily ends in political dispute. And data-drivenness is engaged because the railway project order rests on calculations today too — only not public ones; the proposal does not ask for new data but for the readability of the existing calculation. These two values coincide here for a moment: whoever publishes the standard now also protects themselves from having to reconstruct ten years from now why exactly that decision was taken.

Part VI — Justifications and further sources

6.1 The press framing by spectrum

The economic band was the only one that brought the substantive content. Portfolio’s article reported at the same time the government decision published in the Hungarian Official Gazette and the deadline of the asset authority’s leadership call — that is, the two most important procedural developments of the week — but this framing is event-reporting and not analytical: the news says that the projects can start, not which ones and in what order.

The left-liberal and public affairs band turned on this day to the “special train” dispute. Both 444.hu and 24.hu worked up the duel of the MP’s claim and the minister’s reply, and 24.hu also published the minister’s detailed technical explanation of the test run and the testing records. Telex carried another thread further: MÁV’s chief landscape architect call and the review of green space management practice — this was the week’s only article that was about the conditions of an appointment procedure, not about the person.

The conservative band split on the topic: Magyar Nemzet carried the MP’s exposé further, while Mandiner reported the results announced by the minister. From MIAK’s point of view it is precisely this pattern that is most instructive: on the development order, that is, on the decision with a decades-long effect, no band published an independent analysis — the public’s attention was taken up by a one-day symbolic dispute. This is not a press failure but a structural consequence: the symbolic dispute is immediately comprehensible, the priority calculation is not. Precisely for that reason the calculation has to be published — not so that everyone reads it, but so that the few experts who are interested can read it.

6.2 Facts and data

Datum Value Source
Publication of the government decision on the review of IKOP Plus published in the Hungarian Official Gazette by 9 August 2026 Portfolio, 9 August 2026
Application deadline at the asset authority (president + 4 vice-presidents) 16 August 2026 Portfolio, 9 August 2026
Date of the hearing and the possible decision end of August 2026 Portfolio, 9 August 2026
Eligibility requirement for the MÁV chief landscape architect post higher education degree in the relevant field, min. 5 years’ professional and 3 years’ management experience Telex, 9 August 2026
Deadline of the chief landscape architect call end of August 2026 Telex, 9 August 2026
The overhead line protection strip in which vegetation higher than 4 metres is prohibited 7-7 metres from the overhead line Portfolio / Telex, 9 August 2026
Deadline for comments on the timetable of the Budapest–Belgrade line the Friday following the news 24.hu, 9 August 2026

There is one thing the table does not contain, and this is the most important: the list of projects entering the programme and their estimated cost. With the publication of the government decision this datum already exists somewhere — for the public, however, it is not available today, and this is precisely the subject of MIAK’s point 3.2.

6.3 Policy dimensions

  • Transport and infrastructure (programme points) — the data-based underpinning of the development order and the publicity of real-time transport data, which also makes it possible to measure the effect of the investment afterwards;
  • Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points) — project-level public money transparency and public procurement transparency, within the institutional frame of checks and balances;
  • Public administration and e-government (programme points) — the professional criteria of leadership selection and the principle of measurable efficiency in setting up new authorities.

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 Peter F. Drucker: The Effective Executive

The central claim of Drucker’s book is that the secret of executive performance is concentration, and that concentration requires a prior decision on what comes first. As he writes, effective executives “concentrate on the few major areas where superior performance will produce outstanding results. They force themselves to set priorities and stay with their priority decisions. They know that they have no choice but to do first things first — and second things not at all.” The book also names the other half of the decision: it is not enough to decide what comes first, one also has to decide what is left out.

In the case of a large-scale railway development programme this idea is directly applicable. The list of projects entering the programme is not only about what gets built but also about what does not — and it is precisely this second part that never becomes public. The publication proposed in MIAK’s point 3.2 therefore asks not only for the justification of the selected projects but also that the derivation of the order be visible: if passenger numbers and journey time give the ranking, then it can also be read from that which project fell below the line, and why. This information is uncomfortable at local level, but from a planning point of view it is the most valuable: the preparation of the next programming cycle begins with that list.

📖 Source: Peter F. Drucker: The Effective Executive

6.4.2 Susan Rose-Ackerman: Corruption and Government

One of the least quoted findings of Rose-Ackerman’s analysis, and the one that fits the present situation most precisely, is not about procurement but about project selection. Listing the toolkit of high-level rent-seeking, the author records that decision-makers “may propose expensive, complex, capital-intensive projects that can be used to generate kickbacks”, and separately addresses the fact that a ruler can cause a budgetary crisis not only by supporting too many capital projects but also by underpricing state concessions. The closing chapter of the book adds the development policy lesson that attention narrowed to large-scale infrastructure projects and macroeconomic policy “is not sufficient and may even backfire” if institutions are weak.

Translated to the Hungarian situation, this finding rearranges the order of risks. Public procurement transparency — the publicity of the call, the bids and the contract — is necessary, but the substantive part of the decision has already been taken earlier: when it was decided which project gets onto the list at all. If the justification of project selection is not public, then even the most transparent public procurement takes place over a pre-selected investment. MIAK’s point 3.2 therefore asks for the publication of the list and the calculation behind it, and is not satisfied with the publicity of the procurement phase.

📖 Source: Susan Rose-Ackerman: Corruption and Government — Causes, Consequences, and Reform

6.4.3 Kautilya: Arthashastra

The author of the ancient Indian handbook of statecraft lists forty ways of abuse by public officials, and then formulates a conclusion worth quoting verbatim: “It is possible to mark the path of birds flying high in the sky; but it is not possible to ascertain the path of officials acting with hidden purpose.” Kautilya draws from this not the conclusion of resignation but that of regulation: since observation after the fact does not work, the procedural rules and the consequences have to be fixed in advance — the volume therefore lists in detail which participants in a given financial operation have to be questioned separately, and records that whoever makes a false statement bears the same consequence as the principal offender.

This insight of more than two thousand years fits the present situation exactly. In the case of an asset recovery authority, subsequent oversight — however strict — is structurally at a disadvantage: the procedures are confidential in nature, the decisions require deliberation, and the investigator always arrives after the decision. MIAK’s point 3.1 therefore proposes not more oversight but more prior publicity: if the criteria for filling the leadership post and the candidate’s professional programme are readable before the decision, then the operation of the authority can be measured against that programme. This is not a lack of trust but the recognition of what Kautilya formulated — that people cannot be watched continuously, but rules can be written out in advance.

📖 Source: Kautilya: Arthashastra

6.5 International comparison

In the publicity of development project lists European practice uses two complementary solutions. One is the publication of project-level justification before the decision: every element of the list has a short, public summary of the estimated cost, the expected traffic effect and the method of the analysis — so that the regions of the projects left out also see on the basis of what figure they dropped out. The other is making ex-post impact assessment compulsory: for larger investments the actual traffic has to be compared a few years after handover with the forecast that served as the basis for the investment decision. The latter is the more disciplining instrument, because if the planner knows that their estimate will later be measured against reality, they forecast more cautiously.

In leadership selection the institution of the public hearing is the most widespread model: in several EU countries and in the EU institutions, when filling the larger supervisory and prosecutorial posts the candidate submits a written programme, takes part in a committee hearing, and the minutes of the hearing are public. The system works not because the public decides — the decision remains with the body entitled to elect or appoint — but because the decision can afterwards be measured against the candidate’s own undertakings. This is the model that in the case of the Hungarian asset authority could be adopted within a few weeks, without a legislative amendment.

Transport and infrastructure

  • KO4 — Data-based railway development prioritisation
  • KO1 — Real-time public transport data

Transparency and anti-corruption policy

  • A1 — Public money dashboard
  • A2 — Public procurement transparency
  • A6 — Strengthening checks and balances

Public administration and e-government

  • KI7 — Official selection and rotation system
  • KI8 — Drucker-style efficiency measurement in public administration

Proposed new programme point: A publicity minimum for leadership selection — for the Public administration and e-government area.

6.7 List of sources

Press sources (MIAK press monitor, 10 August 2026 — topic 6):

Knowledge-base references (books):

  • 📖 Peter F. Drucker: The Effective Executive
  • 📖 Susan Rose-Ackerman: Corruption and Government — Causes, Consequences, and Reform
  • 📖 Kautilya: Arthashastra

Note: the local file path of the books does not appear in the visible text of the blog — only the author and the title. The file path is an internal matter of the generation process, not the reader’s.

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Transport and infrastructure (programme points; programme point ID: KO1, KO4)
  • MIAK policy area: Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points; programme point ID: A1, A2, A6)
  • MIAK policy area: Public administration and e-government (programme points; programme point ID: KI7, KI8)
  • MIAK press monitor, 10 August 2026 — topic 6, score: 79/100

Additional public data sources (where used):

  • Hungarian Official Gazette — government decisions
  • EU CEF/TEN-T project database — EU co-financed transport projects
  • Database of the Public Procurement Authority — contracts and procedures
  • Eurostat — railway performance data

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