Part I — Situation overview

On 26 August 2026 the committee of inquiry of the National Assembly charged with uncovering the abuses connected with the operation of the Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB, the central bank of Hungary) held its constitutive sitting. The six-member body — its chair Attila Csőszi (Tisza), its members Ildikó Éva Sopov and István Weigand (Tisza), as well as Bence Tuzson (Fidesz), János Hargitai (KDNP) and István Apáti (Mi Hazánk) — adopted its rules of procedure and its work plan divided into four blocks. The first block examines the emergence of the foundation-based asset management structure: who conceived the idea, what statutory and background regulation made it possible, who bears responsibility for the preparation and adoption of the legislation, and whether there was any reasonable ground for the placement compatible with the public interest. The second block follows the path of the assets through Optima Befektetési Zrt., the related companies, the boards of trustees and the supervisory boards — the chair named separately the real estate transactions, the foreign stock exchange investments, the refurbishment of the central bank headquarters and the expenditures of a personal, luxury character. The third block seeks the answer to where and why the checks and balances failed to work in the chain formed by the boards of trustees, the supervisory board, the audit, state supervision and the legislative actors. The fourth block is the final report itself, which has to be laid before the plenary sitting by 31 December 2026.

The order of magnitude is known. According to the report of the State Audit Office (ÁSZ) made public in March 2025, the foundations established by the MNB — merged in 2019 into the PADME Foundation — and their asset manager, Optima, ran through a complex and opaque network of companies the 266 billion forints received at the time of establishment, as well as a further 127.5 billion forints of the Foundation for the János Neumann University. In answer to Portfolio’s question the committee chair added to the balance the bank credit that came to the circle and the rise in the price level of the years since; among the investments examined he named the transactions of the Polish property developer GTC and of the Swiss Ultima Capital, the Balatonakarattya development and the matter of the Kecskemét university. The ÁSZ filed a criminal complaint on suspicion of offences against property and against the order of economic management; the police are investigating on suspicion of misappropriation, but a year and a half after the complaint there is still no suspect. At the constitutive sitting the committee voted unanimously to request the public report of the ÁSZ and the documents underlying it which have not so far been made public. On the same day the legislative amendment entered into force which prescribes a fine of 100 thousand forints on the first occasion and of 1 million forints on the second and third occasions for invitees who fail to appear, and on the third occasion allows the chair of the committee to initiate their production by the police.

MIAK’s reading: in public law terms the most important thing to record is that the committee of inquiry is an organ of the National Assembly, not an investigating authority. It makes findings and lays a report before the plenary; it may not establish criminal responsibility, which only a court may do, and only the prosecution service may bring charges. The same delimitation applies to the ÁSZ as well: it is a supervisory body, not a coercive authority. The chair of the committee said this himself — “we will not investigate and we will not judge”. It follows that the performance of the body is measurable neither by the weight of the names that appear on the list of hearings, nor by how effectively the phrase “the greatest bank robbery in history” sounds before the public. The product of the committee of inquiry is a single document: the final report of 31 December. If that is built on reconstructible data, and translates the institutional gap uncovered — the exemption from publicity of central bank assets outsourced into a foundation — into a proposed text of law, then the mandate has fulfilled its purpose. If not, then what remains after it is a well-documented scandal, with an unchanged set of rules.

Part II — Foundations in the literature

Before turning to the concrete proposals, it is worth setting out the conceptual framework in which the committee’s mandate can be evaluated. According to section 149 of John Locke’s work of 1690, Second Treatise of Government (English philosopher, one of the founders of modern constitutional thought), legislative power is merely a fiduciary power: an authorisation received for specified ends, which loses its legal basis with the manifest neglect of the end — this is precisely the question that the first block of the committee examines in connection with the act of 2016 which abolished the public money character. In the chapter on political accountability in Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville (French thinker, the first systematic analyst of American democracy) shows that the aim of the “political jurisdiction” exercised by the legislature is not punishment but deprivation of power. At the same time he warns: it is precisely its mildness that makes it easy to apply, and therefore also suitable for abuse in the hands of the majority of the day. And the section “Scandal and Crisis as Catalysts” of the volume Corruption and Government by Susan Rose-Ackerman (American lawyer-economist, the leading author of the institutional school of corruption research) describes the mechanism because of which scandals as a rule nonetheless do not lead to reform: the processing narrows to persons, and the systemic conditions which created the actors remain untouched. The detailed treatment of the literature — author by author, with quotations — can be found in section 6.4 Literature in detail.

Part III — MIAK’s concrete proposal

MIAK proposes three measurable measures, each of which can be realised within the committee’s own competence or within the present parliamentary term.

3.1 A public, quantified list of success criteria alongside the work plan (by the first substantive sitting)

The work plan adopted by the committee describes what it will examine; it does not describe when it will consider its own work successful. MIAK proposes that at its next sitting the body should adopt — as a supplement to the work plan, by a separate vote — a short, public list of criteria. This should contain four items: how many previously non-public documents the committee will publish on its own website; the amendment of how many itemised, named legal provisions the final report will propose; in what form it will reconstruct in figures the use of the initial assets of 266 billion forints and of the reallocation of 127.5 billion forints; and by what deadline it will publish the minutes of the hearings. In the logic of Locke’s fiduciary power this is self-limitation: an authorisation tied to an end can be called to account if the end is stated in advance, measurably — and it is precisely this that will make a politically composed body credible. Compiling the list of criteria is a task for the committee’s secretariat, adopting it is a matter for the body, and publishing it is an administrative question for the Office of the National Assembly — it requires no legislative amendment.

3.2 Mandatory publication of the minutes of the hearings without delay (on an ongoing basis)

The sanctions regime that has now entered into force — a fine starting at 100 thousand forints, and on a third failure to appear the initiation of production by the police — gives the committee a substantive means of coercion. The risk described by Tocqueville lives in exactly such a situation: the coercive power of a politically composed body may become an instrument of the majority even where the original aim of the mandate is legitimate. The counterweight is not the removal of the instrument but publicity: MIAK proposes that the committee should stipulate in its rules of procedure the publication of the full text of the minutes of hearings, at the latest on the tenth working day following the sitting in question, with the redaction solely of parts which would prejudice the interest of the ongoing investigation and of parts containing personal data — with itemised indication of the reason for the redaction. In this way the committee’s activity will be traceable not from quotations at press conferences but from a primary source, and accusations of obstruction will also become verifiable in both directions. This is the direct application of the A6 programme point to the operation of parliamentary control itself.

3.3 Bringing central bank and public body foundation assets into the public money database (in the legislative proposal of the final report)

The fourth phase of the work plan divided into blocks promises legislative, supervisory and institutional change proposals. According to MIAK the most important element of this is not the naming of those responsible but a single normative sentence: foundations established or endowed with assets by the central bank and by public bodies, and their asset management companies, are obliged, irrespective of their organisational classification, to publish their contracts, their investment decisions and their annual reports, in machine-readable form. This is an extension of the data ranges of the A1 public money dashboard programme point, and in substance it closes the same gap that MIAK’s entry of 22 August 2026 on central bank data publicity discussed from the side of operating expenditure. The advantage of the proposal is that it requires no new institution: the data provision infrastructure of the Electronic Public Procurement System (EKR) and of the Hungarian State Treasury is in place, and the rule extending the publication obligation to asset managers is a matter of a few paragraphs. The G19 programme point — radical transparency in economic decision-making — follows exactly this logic.

The three proposals are linked by a single principle: a parliamentary inquiry is power, and every power has credibility if it states in advance what it ties its own success to, and if its operation can be verified from a primary source. Locke’s concept of fiduciary power reflects back on the legislature too — the committee is the holder of the very same authorisation of trust whose violation it is examining.

Part IV — Expected effects and risks

Dimension Expected effect Risk
Public finances The path of the initial assets of 266 billion forints and of the reallocation of 127.5 billion becomes reconstructible; the publication obligation on asset managers durably reduces the possibility of similar outsourcing Reconstruction is costly and slow; in the case of foreign stock exchange holdings (GTC, Ultima Capital) a Hungarian data provision obligation is not in itself enough, international legal assistance is needed
Public law and institutions With success criteria laid down in advance and public minutes the committee creates a precedent for every later committee of inquiry The coercive instruments (fine, production by the police) may in the hands of a politically composed body become the weapon of the majority of the day; if no procedural guarantee is built around them, the side that finds itself in opposition will rightly invoke this
Publicity and trust The publicity of the minutes reduces “who said what” press disputes, and makes accusations of obstruction verifiable as well Person-centred media processing may override the professional content of the report; under pressure from publicity the committee may shift towards spectacular hearings at the expense of document analysis
Criminal proceedings The requested ÁSZ background materials, not so far public, may indirectly assist the taking of evidence Distinctly risky: parallel parliamentary publicity may prejudice the interest of the ongoing investigation — this is why the redaction rule with itemised reasoning is needed

The most sensitive point is the committee’s coercive power. Without the sanctions regime that has now entered into force the body would be worth only as much as the goodwill of the invitees allows — which is little in the light of an investigation that has stood for a year and a half without a suspect. With the power, however, the committee has obtained an instrument exercised by a politically composed body, without a forum of legal remedy. The proposal tips to the risk side if the sanction instrument is applied without public minutes and itemised reasoning: for then the standard will be the discretion of the majority of the day. The second question of judgement is temporal: the deadline of 31 December gives four months for processing four blocks. If the committee wants everything, it will finish nothing; if it lays down the success criteria in advance, then narrowing too will be a documented decision that can be called to account, not a quiet attrition.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth following? (proposed KPIs)

MIAK proposes the following performance indicators (KPIs, Key Performance Indicators) for monitoring — these are not government commitments but verifiable measures proposed for the public:

  • The number of previously non-public documents published on the committee’s website by 31 December 2026 — proposed minimum: the full range of the background materials underlying the ÁSZ report, with redaction of parts prejudicing the interest of the ongoing investigation.
  • The number of itemised legal provisions named in the final report to which an amendment proposal relates — proposed minimum: the provisions of the MNB act on the establishment of foundations and on the public money character, as well as the publication rules for asset managers.
  • The publication turnaround time of the minutes of hearings — proposed target: within 10 working days of the sitting, with 100 per cent coverage.
  • The share of assets reconstructed out of the starting sum of 393.5 billion forints (266 + 127.5 billion) — proposed target: the final report should derive the use of at least 80 per cent of the total sum item by item, with sources indicated.

5.2 Summary

MIAK’s request in a single sentence: at its next sitting let the committee adopt a public, quantified list of success criteria, and let it stipulate the publication of the minutes of hearings to a deadline — and let the final report close not with a list of those responsible but with a proposed text of law. Uncovering political responsibility is a legitimate aim, but on its own it is a product with an expiry date; it is the change of rules that also works in the next term. This request is addressed to the public as well: let us not judge the committee’s performance by the weight of the list of those heard.

Two MIAK foundational values move together here. Accountability, because parliamentary control is the institution which can subject the legislature’s own earlier decision — the act of 2016 abolishing the public money character — to examination from the point of view of political and institutional responsibility; the ordinary courts cannot do this, the Constitutional Court may examine it exclusively from the point of view of constitutionality, in the framework of norm control, and the ÁSZ may touch on it only from the side of economic management. And transparency, because the coercive powers of this committee are limited by no forum of legal remedy: the only substantive counterweight is that what it does should be traceable from a primary source, without delay. Here the two values are not decoration but conditions of operation — without them the inquiry would repeat exactly the pattern it is meant to uncover.

Part VI — Justifications and further sources

6.1 The framing of the press, spectrum by spectrum

The liberal-left band highlighted the risk of the committee’s inoperability. Under the headline “Fidesz is already playing for time” HVG placed the timing of the opposition amendment proposals at the centre, while 444.hu opened with “spectacular obstruction”, and reconstructed in detail the 34-minute debate on Bence Tuzson’s 19-point amendment package submitted out of time, 38 minutes before the sitting. This framing focuses on the internal dynamics of the committee, and treats the substantive questions of the mandate — what the four blocks examine — as secondary. Telex carried the same day from the perspective of the preparation of the opposition members.

The public affairs and economic band placed the content of the work plan in the foreground. Two articles of 24.hu set out the committee’s definition of tasks (the distortion of the handling of public money, the establishment of political, institutional and administrative responsibility), while Portfolio highlighted the two most concrete procedural novelties: the on-site, external sittings and the obligation to appear that has now entered into force. Portfolio was the only source that asked in figures about the size of the assets examined, and so it was this paper that reported the items of 266 billion forints and 127.5 billion forints. ATV brought to the fore the rhetorical elements of the press conference (“the greatest bank robbery”, the chair’s sentence alluding to an Orbán–Matolcsy pact).

The conservative band did not carry this topic among its lead items on this day — neither Magyar Nemzet nor Mandiner appears among the sources of today’s monitor for this topic, while on the next topic (the 20 August procurement) both papers carried the matter prominently. The absence is itself information: the MNB foundation affair is at present not the frame in which the conservative band wishes to discuss the question of accountability. MIAK does not qualify this, it merely records it — in the spirit of non-ideological judgement the procedure would be the same in the reverse configuration.

6.2 Facts and data

Data Value Source
The initial public money that went into the foundations HUF 266 billion ÁSZ report (March 2025), confirmation by the committee chair (Portfolio, 26 August 2026)
The sum that went from the Foundation for the János Neumann University into Optima HUF 127.5 billion ÁSZ report (March 2025), Portfolio, 26 August 2026
The number of members of the committee of inquiry 6 persons (3 from the governing side, 3 from the opposition) 444.hu, 24.hu, 26 August 2026
The deadline for the final report 31 December 2026 the committee’s adopted work plan, Portfolio, 26 August 2026
Fine for failure to appear 1st occasion: HUF 100,000; 2nd and 3rd occasions: HUF 1,000,000; from the 3rd occasion production by the police may be initiated the legislative amendment which entered into force on 26 August 2026, Portfolio, 26 August 2026
The state of the investigation suspicion of misappropriation, no suspect police information, 444.hu, 26 August 2026
Time elapsed since the ÁSZ criminal complaint approx. a year and a half statement of the committee chair, 444.hu, 26 August 2026

The table makes two connections visible. The first: the order of magnitude of the assets examined — the two items together 393.5 billion forints — is comparable with the annual budget of a medium-sized ministry, so the reconstruction is not a symbolic but a budgetary item. The second: the pace of the criminal proceedings and of the parliamentary inquiry has diverged. The investigation has not reached a suspect in a year and a half, while the committee has four months for the final report. This difference justifies that the product of the two procedures should also be different: that of the investigation is evidence, that of the committee is a proposed rule.

6.3 Policy dimensions

  • Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points) — the extension of the data ranges of the A1 public money dashboard to the foundation and asset manager circle; the A6 checks and balances programme point applied to the procedural guarantees of parliamentary control itself; the A10 independent corruption investigation bureau as the competence-side complement of the parliamentary inquiry (the committee does not investigate, so the investigative side needs an independent, standing institutional capacity).
  • Economy (programme points) — the G19 radical transparency in economic decision-making relates directly to the publication of central bank and asset manager decisions; the G22 financial stability monitoring is concerned because the central bank foundation structure accumulated investment risk outside the supervisory field of vision.
  • Public administration and e-government (programme points) — the KI8 Drucker-style efficiency measurement provides the methodological background of proposal 3.1: the performance of an organisational unit can be evaluated only if the expected result is laid down in advance, measurably.

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 John Locke: Second Treatise of Government

In section 149 Locke develops the thought that legislative power — however supreme it may be in its own order — is not the property of the one who exercises it but a fiduciary power: an authorisation received for a specified end, which is limited by that end itself.

“the legislative being only a fiduciary power to act for certain ends, there remains still in the people a supreme power to remove or alter the legislative, when they find the legislative act contrary to the trust reposed in them: for all power given with trust for the attaining an end, being limited by that end, whenever that end is manifestly neglected, or opposed, the trust must necessarily be forfeited”

The strength of the argument lies not in the right of removal but in the qualification stated before it: power handed over in trust is limited by the end itself. This is precisely the primary public law question of the MNB foundation affair. The legislative amendment of 2016, which abolished the public money character of assets placed from the central bank into a foundation, was formally a lawful legislative act — two members of parliament who voted for it at the time were sitting at the committee sitting. In Locke’s framework the question is not whether the legislature had authorisation; it did. The question is whether the given end — the preservation and use for its purpose of public assets — was fulfilled, or whether it was precisely the use of the authorisation that dissolved it. The first block of the committee (“whether there was any reasonable ground for the placement compatible with the public interest”) reformulates exactly this Lockean test in the language of Hungarian public law. And the same test applies to the committee itself: its authorisation too is fiduciary, tied to an end, and the end is the remedying of the flaw in the rules, not political advantage.

📖 Source: John Locke: Second Treatise of Government

6.4.2 Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America

In the chapter on political accountability (“political jurisdiction”) Tocqueville contrasts American and European practice. In Europe the political jurisdiction of the legislative body is punitive in character, and therefore counts as an extraordinary instrument; in America, by contrast, the essence of the political judgement is deprivation of office, not punishment — and it is precisely this that makes it an everyday matter.

“The principal object of the political tribunals of Europe is to punish the offender; the purpose of those in America is to deprive him of his authority.”

From this he derives the warning which holds for today’s Hungarian situation as well: “I am not sure that political jurisdiction, as it is constituted in the United States, is not the most formidable weapon which has ever been placed in the rude grasp of a popular majority.” The core of the argument is that the milder instrument is the more dangerous, because it is reached for more easily — European bodies fear the severe sanction and therefore do not use it, while the American body applies the milder one without hesitation. The Hungarian committee of inquiry is located between the two models: it neither deprives of office nor punishes in the criminal law sense, but since 26 August it may impose fines and initiate production by the police. In Tocqueville’s reading this is exactly the “easily applicable” category, which requires a procedural guarantee — not because the mandate is illegitimate, but because the composition of the body is political and there is no legal remedy against its decision. Hence proposal 3.2: if sanctioning is accompanied by public minutes and itemised reasoning, then publicity performs the counterweight role which in this procedure no court performs.

📖 Source: Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America (volume I, chapter 7)

6.4.3 Susan Rose-Ackerman: Corruption and Government

In the chapter discussing the political economy of reforms Rose-Ackerman examines when a scandal turns into actual institutional change. Her finding is sceptical: the scandal does put corruption on the agenda, but it does not steer the reform in a useful direction, because in a crisis decisions have to be taken quickly, while in calm periods the political support is lacking.

“Reformers must respond to scandals by doing more than punishing the guilty. The challenge is to reduce underlying corrupt incentives. Otherwise anticorruption campaigns become little more than witch hunts that will tend disproportionately to seek out the regime’s political opponents.”

She separately highlights the distortion of media processing: the press is rightly criticised for focusing on the persons at the centre of the scandal, and disregarding the systemic conditions which created the corrupt incentives. In the Hungarian case this pattern is already visible: the public debate on 26 August was largely about who said what at the constitutive sitting, and about whether György Matolcsy will be heard. The systemic condition, however, can be identified in a single legal provision: that the public money character can be abolished by placement into a foundation. Rose-Ackerman’s conclusion — that a scandal is primarily an opportunity to obtain support for institutional changes that are not in themselves spectacular — is exactly the logic of MIAK’s proposal 3.3: the value of the report of 31 December depends on whether it contains a boring, technical, but conclusive proposal for a normative text.

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

6.5 International comparison

In international comparison the effectiveness of parliamentary committees of inquiry correlates strongly with whether the mandate contains mandatory legislative feedback. In the British select committee system the government has to respond in writing, within a specified deadline, to every recommendation of the committee report — the failure to respond itself becomes a matter for the parliamentary agenda. The German Untersuchungsausschuss is a constitutional institution, its powers approach the taking of evidence in court proceedings, but there too the report is not a criminal law product but a political and legislative one. The common element in both models is that the committee does not compete with the investigating authority but produces an outcome different from it.

The model of the Singaporean Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB), which serves as the basis of the A10 programme point, covers the other side by comparison: there the investigative capacity is independent and standing, not a body set up for individual cases. The two solutions are not alternatives to one another. The Hungarian situation shows precisely what happens if only one of them exists: the parliamentary inquiry has started, while the investigation has not reached a suspect in a year and a half. The institutional independence index of the A6 programme point would measure this divergence regularly — not in individual cases but as a trend.

Transparency and anti-corruption policy

  • A1 — Public money dashboard
  • A6 — Strengthening checks and balances
  • A10 — Independent Corruption Investigation Bureau (CPIB model)

Economy

  • G19 — Radical transparency in economic decision-making
  • G22 — Financial stability monitoring and shadow banking regulation

Public administration and e-government

  • KI8 — Drucker-style efficiency measurement in public administration

Proposed new programme point: Procedural minimum for committees of inquiry — for the Transparency and anti-corruption policy area: every parliamentary committee of inquiry should publish, within 30 days of its constitution, a quantified list of success criteria, and should tie the publication of the minutes of hearings to a deadline.

6.7 List of sources

Press sources (MIAK press monitor, 27 August 2026 — topic 1):

Knowledge base references (literature):

  • 📖 John Locke: Second Treatise of Government
  • 📖 Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America
  • 📖 Susan Rose-Ackerman: Corruption and Government — Causes, Consequences, and Reform

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points; programme point ID: A1, A6, A10)
  • MIAK policy area: Economy (programme points; programme point ID: G19, G22)
  • MIAK policy area: Public administration and e-government (programme points; programme point ID: KI8)
  • MIAK press monitor, 27 August 2026 — topic 1, score: 95/100

Supplementary public data sources:

  • State Audit Office — report on the economic management of the foundations of the Magyar Nemzeti Bank (March 2025)
  • National Assembly — committee minutes and register of documents
  • Magyar Nemzeti Bank — annual reports
  • Transparency International — Corruption Perceptions Index

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