Part I — Situation overview

The most important deadline of the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF — the EU’s central financial instrument for economic recovery after the Covid pandemic) has expired: the reforms, investment milestones and targets undertaken in the national plan had to be fulfilled by midnight on 31 August 2026. A payment request can still be submitted until the end of September, but measures taken in September no longer count towards fulfilment. Dávid Vitézy, minister for transport and investment, announced that evening on ATV’s Egyenes Beszéd programme that Hungary had fulfilled all 127 milestones and “super milestones”; the government received the feedback at 3.33 p.m. This opened the way to some 10 billion euros, which the Commission must transfer by 31 December at the latest. At a press conference on a Budapest trolleybus development, the same minister was already speaking of some 16 billion euros, or 5,500–6,000 billion forints depending on the exchange rate — counting the recovery envelope and the previously frozen cohesion funds together. Prime Minister Péter Magyar mentioned 16.4 billion euros at the Bled Strategic Forum in Slovenia, while Portfolio wrote throughout of a stake of 10 billion euros, close to 3,650 billion forints.

The background is the political agreement of May between the prime minister and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission. That in itself was still only a political result: afterwards the precise conditions of access had to be negotiated, and then fulfilled at the legislative, institutional and implementation levels. According to press reports this required the amendment of more than a hundred pieces of legislation — including the tightening of asset declaration and conflict-of-interest rules, making private equity funds more transparent, and accession to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office — and around three thousand people worked on the process on the state side. One technical element of the implementation sprint is that sufficiently prepared projects previously financed from the domestic budget or from another EU programme — for example Budapest CAF trams and new trolleybuses — were reclassified under the recovery envelope; according to the minister this freed up some 3.5 billion euros of room for manoeuvre for other developments. New elements included the modernisation of the energy grid at around one and a half billion euros, and the procurement of new suburban railway and InterCity multiple units; for the latter a state train leasing company was capitalised with 640 billion forints. Because of the rule of law conditions, the Commission blocked the Hungarian programme in practice for years, so Hungary had to deliver in a single short window of time what other member states had years to do.

MIAK’s reading: today’s debate is unmanageable because it is not about the same quantity. The 10 billion euros is the recovery envelope, the 16 billion is the sum understood together with cohesion funds, the 3,650 billion forints is the forint value of the 10 billion euros, and the 16.4 billion is the prime minister’s spoken rounding. These do not contradict but supplement one another — it is just that nobody says which figure covers what. Because of this, the pro-government “historic success” and the government-critical “exposure” framings alike hang in the air: both live off the same gap, that there is no single public table broken down by legal title. The character of the problem is therefore not that the government achieved little or much, but that the result achieved is in its present form not verifiable — while the bigger question, the quality of the spending, is already being decided now.

Part II — Foundations in the literature

Three EU and international analytical frames offer a handhold for interpreting today’s situation. The introductory publication on cohesion policy of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Regional Policy (DG REGIO) sets out what “drawdown” means at all: projects are selected by the member states’ managing authorities, the Commission reimburses expenditure certified by the national authorities, and the programmes are accompanied by continuous on-the-spot checks and audits. Drawdown is therefore not a single act but several phases with legally distinct status, which public communication regularly conflates. The OECD’s country study on the European Union adds the decisive proposition from the empirical side: above a certain level of funds per capita, improving the quality of governance is a stronger development instrument than further public investment — beyond a point, therefore, the amount of money explains less than institutional quality. And the collection of opinions on cohesion policy of the European Economic and Social Committee points out that the partnership principle — the involvement of social partners and civil society organisations in programming and monitoring — is not a decorative element but a condition of the effective use of funds. 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. None of them requires an amendment of EU legislation, and none of them slows the arrival of the funds.

The debate can be closed not by another announcement but by a single table. MIAK proposes that within 30 days of the expiry of the deadline the government publish an account broken down by operational programme and by legal title, showing in four separate columns the sums awarded, committed, paid and still conditional, in both currencies. The account should also state the date and rate of the euro–forint conversion. The table must show separately the recovery envelope and the previously frozen cohesion funds, as well as what share within the sum is the subsequent accounting of projects already implemented earlier and now reclassified, and what share is new development. The latter is especially important: the 3.5 billion euros of “room for manoeuvre” is economically real, but it is not the same as new EU money, and the reader has a right to see the difference. The format of the table should be machine-readable, not a scanned document — this is the direct application of the G1 data-driven budget programme point. The status concepts appearing in the DG REGIO description (see 6.4.2) — selection, certified expenditure, payment — are precisely what make this four-column breakdown possible.

3.2 Full life-cycle open data for every EU-financed project (by the start of the 2027 budget year)

The drawdown has closed, the spending is now beginning — and in MIAK’s view this is from here on the more important question. The proposal: every project financed from EU funds should receive a public, machine-readable data sheet that follows the project’s life cycle from the beneficiary and the amount through the target indicators to actual performance, and that remains accessible after the project’s closure. For projects above one billion forints, a prior cost-benefit analysis and a subsequent measurement of results should be compulsory, the former carried out by an independent institute, both public. This connects the A8 cohesion accountability and the A1 public money dashboard programme points, and at the same time extends the G20 impact assessment system to the EU project portfolio. According to the OECD’s analysis (see 6.4.1), the selection of cohesion projects in the member states often takes place on a first-come, first-served basis rather than in competition on the basis of their contribution to results — the public data sheet is the minimum instrument by which this can be called to account afterwards.

3.3 Risk indicators fixed in advance for the spending phase (before large-volume payments begin)

Spending large sums in a short time raises the risk of rent-seeking and of deteriorating project quality in every member state; this is not a Hungarian peculiarity but a regularity well documented in the literature. MIAK proposes that before large-volume payments begin, the government publish the few indicators with which it will itself monitor the risk: the share of single-bid public procurement procedures in EU-financed tenders, the share of the value of contract amendments relative to the contracted sum, and the market concentration of winning bidders. The indicators should be published quarterly, broken down by fund. The key is the order: if the yardstick is made public before the payments, then it cannot later be disputed that it was invented after the fact. This is the adaptation of the A2 public procurement transparency programme point to a concrete, time-bound situation.

The three proposals are held together by a single principle: the public should not have to reconstruct from announcements what happened to public money, but should see it continuously. The account shows what came in; the data sheet what it went on; and the risk indicators at what price. These three together make EU funds verifiable public money — separately, none of them is sufficient.

Part IV — Expected effects and risks

Dimension Expected effect Risk
Economy The inflow of funds becomes plannable for the budget and for market actors; the pre-financing exposure becomes visible The public account may show that a significant part of the announced sum is the subsequent accounting of earlier projects — politically uncomfortable, but economically it makes expectations more precise
Public administration The decisions of managing authorities become auditable; project selection moves in a results-based direction The data reporting burden may fall disproportionately on smaller beneficiaries if there is no simplified procedure for small projects
Transparency Risk indicators fixed in advance make it harder for any later government to spend the EU envelope without a yardstick The indicators may become formalistic if there is no external scrutiny behind them — the State Audit Office (ÁSZ) or a parliamentary committee
External relations The itemised account is also a usable negotiating instrument in further consultations with the Commission Overly strict internal control may come at the expense of the capacity to absorb funds, if project promoters do not apply for fear of sanctions

The main question to be weighed runs between speed and control. The logic of the recovery envelope pushes towards fast implementation: every project has to be paid for by the state first and is only reimbursed afterwards by the Commission, so delay is a direct budgetary burden. At the same time it is precisely haste that, according to the literature, carries the greatest quality risk. MIAK’s proposal was put in three stages so as not to collide with this: point 3.1 is retrospective and therefore slows nothing; point 3.2 is administrative rather than authorisation-based and therefore erects no new gate before projects; and point 3.3 is an instrument of measurement, not of prohibition. The proposal tips over to the risk side if data reporting were required of small projects at the same depth — which is why the one billion forint threshold and simplified accounting for small projects are an organic part of the package.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth following? (proposed KPIs)

The performance indicators below (KPIs, Key Performance Indicators) are MIAK proposals, not government decisions. All of them can be calculated from publicly available data:

  • Arrival rate: the share of the announced envelope that has actually arrived in the Hungarian budget — proposed points of follow-up: 31 December 2026 and 30 June 2027.
  • Accounting coverage: publication of the machine-readable account broken down by legal title within 30 days of the expiry of the deadline (yes/no).
  • Single-bid share: the share of procedures closed with a single bid in EU-financed public procurement — proposed target: it should not rise above the starting level during the spending phase.
  • Coverage of results measurement: what percentage of EU projects above one billion forints had a public prior impact assessment — proposed target: 100% after 12 months.

5.2 Summary

MIAK’s key message: the drawdown phase has closed, but the reckoning has not — and this can be closed not by another announcement but by a single public table broken down by legal title. MIAK asks this of the government, and asks the public to pay attention in the coming months not to the announced sum but to the quality of the spending. EU funds will be a success if the railway becomes faster, housing more affordable and the energy grid more stable because of them — not because a large figure was uttered about them.

Two MIAK foundational values are in play here. Transparency, because a claim about public money is a claim only if it can be traced: as long as four figures circulate about the same matter, the public is not being informed but choosing a figure according to camp. And data-drivenness, because in the spending phase risk is not a matter of opinion — it can be signalled in advance with measurable indicators, and that is precisely why it makes sense to fix the yardstick before the payments. MIAK asks this standard equally of every government, regardless of which one drew down the funds.

Part VI — Justifications and further sources

6.1 The framing of the press, spectrum by spectrum

In the economic band, Portfolio carried the most consistent framing: in the days before the deadline it ran the “the clock is ticking” narrative, with a concrete stake (10 billion euros, close to 3,650 billion forints), and after the expiry it reported the minister’s announcement as a statement of fact. The same editorial office was also the first to ask the question of the next phase — in a podcast episode on what this sum “is enough for” — that is, the economic band is the only one that moved on from the drawdown to the spending.

In the liberal-left and general public affairs band the emphasis fell on the political frame. Telex and 24.hu put the Bled forum in the headline, with the prime minister’s sentence “I looked into von der Leyen’s eyes”. HVG’s eurologus column was the only one to explain the mechanism of the recovery instrument to readers — the 573 billion euro EU envelope, the performance-based payment logic, and the fact that the Hungarian programme was blocked for years because of the rule of law conditions. ATV posed the spending question with a programme title (“New EU money, new corruption risks?”), so it appeared in this band too, just not as the main thread of the news.

In the pro-government and conservative band the framing split in two. Mandiner reported the announcement in its own substance, supplemented with the re-establishment of the Council for Public Developments in the Capital and with the mayor’s reaction — this was one of the least politicised reports of the day. Magyar Nemzet, by contrast, ran two separate threads: a news item on the prime minister’s figure at Bled, and an opinion column entry claiming that the Commission had not confirmed the drawdown. This last claim is the day’s single element that MIAK was unable to verify from an independent source when writing this post — which is why the post does not build on it.

The most interesting difference between the bands is not the tone but the level of the question posed. Four different figures went around the Hungarian press, but no band asked which figure relates to which legal title — even though both the pro-government “success” and the government-critical “bubble” framings stand or fall on this same lack of clarity.

6.2 Facts and data

Datum Value Source
The RRF milestone deadline 31 August 2026, midnight Portfolio, 31 August 2026
Deadline for submitting payment requests end of September 2026 Portfolio, 31 August 2026
Milestones and super milestones fulfilled 127 Dávid Vitézy, ATV Egyenes Beszéd, 31 August 2026
The stake of the recovery envelope approx. EUR 10 billion (approx. HUF 3,650 billion) Portfolio, 31 August 2026
The sum announced including cohesion funds approx. EUR 16 billion (HUF 5,500–6,000 billion) Mandiner, 31 August 2026
The sum mentioned by the prime minister EUR 16.4 billion Magyar Nemzet, 31 August 2026
Final deadline for the EU transfer 31 December 2026 Dávid Vitézy, ATV Egyenes Beszéd
Room for manoeuvre freed up by reclassification approx. EUR 3.5 billion Dávid Vitézy, ATV Egyenes Beszéd
Capitalisation of the state train leasing company HUF 640 billion Dávid Vitézy, ATV Egyenes Beszéd
Energy grid modernisation approx. EUR 1.5 billion Dávid Vitézy, ATV Egyenes Beszéd
Suburban rail development from cohesion funds HUF 174 billion, up to 2030 Mandiner, 31 August 2026
The total EU envelope of the RRF EUR 573 billion (originally 723.8 billion) HVG eurologus, 31 August 2026

The table itself shows the problem: the three sums in the upper rows — 10, 16 and 16.4 billion euros — are not a contradiction but data relating to different sets, yet no source says so. And the last row gives the order of magnitude: the Hungarian item is roughly 1.7 per cent of the EU recovery envelope.

6.3 Policy dimensions

  • Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points) — project-level registration of the use of funds, public procurement risk indicators, the recovery mechanism;
  • Economy (programme points) — the macroeconomic and budgetary incorporation of EU funds, the deficit effect of pre-financing, the subsequent impact assessment of the project portfolio;
  • Foreign policy (programme points) — the documentation of consultations with the Commission and the publicity of the negotiating mandate;
  • Transport and infrastructure (background material) — railway rolling stock, the suburban network and trolleybus procurement as the largest items of the envelope.

An important public-law delimitation: the Government sees to the drawdown of the funds and the fulfilment of the national plan, but recognising the fulfilment of the milestones is the competence of the European Commission — the Hungarian minister’s announcement and the Commission’s assessment are not the same act. Adjudicating the payment request is likewise a Commission competence, while it is Parliament, not the Government, that decides on the adoption of the Acts needed for fulfilment.

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 OECD: Economic Surveys — European Union

Examining the effectiveness of cohesion policy, the OECD’s country study on the European Union concludes that the empirical results are only moderately encouraging: most econometric studies measure a positive but small effect, while some analyses reach non-significant or even negative results. The study finds the explanation in institutional quality:

“Above a certain threshold of cohesion funds received per capita, improving the quality of government is a far more powerful lever for development than additional public investment.”

The study also names concrete mechanisms. It points out that projects are often selected on a first-come, first-served basis rather than competing on the basis of their contribution to results, and that the share of single-bid procedures in EU public procurement is high, which can lead to higher prices without any improvement in quality — and can even feed fraud and corruption. This translates directly to the Hungarian situation: in the coming months the bottleneck will not be whether the money arrives, but whether the quality of the selection and procurement procedures can bear the increased volume. That is why MIAK proposes fixing the risk indicators in advance — not to slow the process, but so that any deterioration in quality becomes visible along the way.

📖 Source: OECD: Economic Surveys — European Union

6.4.2 European Commission (DG REGIO): An Introduction to EU Cohesion Policy

The introductory publication of the Commission’s Directorate-General for Regional Policy matters for today’s debate because it describes precisely what the word “drawdown” covers. Programmes are set out by member states and regions in partnership agreements and operational programmes developed jointly with the Commission; individual projects are selected by the member states’ managing authorities. The Commission makes the envelope available at the start of the year, but actual payment takes place on the basis of expenditure certified by the national authorities. The whole process is accompanied by on-the-spot checks and audits over the seven-year cycle. Among the novelties of the 2014–2020 cycle, the publication mentions results orientation first:

“Stronger focus on results: clearer and measurable targets for better accountability.”

MIAK’s four-column accounting proposal follows from this description. “Awarded”, “committed”, “paid” and “still conditional” are not categories invented by MIAK, but the legally distinct statuses of cohesion and recovery implementation itself. Hungarian public discourse replaces these with a single phrase — “money brought home” — and that is precisely what makes the debate impossible to settle. At the same time, the results orientation set out by the publication also means that target indicators already exist at the programming stage: MIAK’s proposal for project-level data sheets therefore creates no new administration, it makes existing data public.

📖 Source: European Commission (DG REGIO): An Introduction to EU Cohesion Policy

6.4.3 European Economic and Social Committee: Cohesion policy as a fundamental pillar for bringing the EU closer to its citizens

In its collection of opinions prepared for the 2021–2027 cohesion cycle, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC — the consultative body of the EU’s organised civil society and social partners) highlights the partnership principle as the most important condition of quality in implementation. The Committee welcomes the fact that the Commission’s proposal improves multi-level governance by emphasising shared management and strengthens the participation of civil society organisations, and it even proposes setting up a separate European civil society cohesion forum. Drawing the ten-year balance of the macro-regional strategies, however, it puts things sharply: performance in reducing social and territorial disparities has remained modest, and among the reasons it names the complexity of governance, the level of bureaucracy and the insufficient involvement of social partners, local economic actors and civil society organisations.

For the Hungarian situation this means that the quality of the spending phase now beginning does not depend on governmental implementation capacity alone. The public, project-level data sheet — MIAK’s proposal 3.2 — creates precisely the information base without which the partnership principle remains formal: a civil society organisation, a local authority or a professional chamber can give a substantive opinion and monitor progress only if it can see at all where things stand. And the “simplification shock” proposed by the Committee also marks out the limit of MIAK’s proposal: the same administrative burden must not be placed on small projects as on large ones.

📖 Source: European Economic and Social Committee: Cohesion policy as a fundamental pillar for bringing the EU closer to its citizens

6.5 International comparison

Programme point A8 names two concrete models. In Estonia the irregularity rate in the use of EU funds is among the lowest in the Union; behind this lie a comprehensive digital registration system and strong internal audit — that is, exactly the two elements that MIAK’s proposal 3.2 proposes for the Hungarian system. In Poland the public procurement “red flag” risk indicator system introduced in the 2014–2020 cycle measurably reduced the share of suspicious procedures; this is the direct precursor of proposal 3.3, and at the same time a refutation of the objection that risk monitoring would slow spending.

The EU-level comparison is instructive too. The original envelope of the recovery instrument was 723.8 billion euros, and the final one fell to 573 billion euros, because several member states did not claim the whole of the available grant or loan. The Hungarian debate is therefore peculiar in international context: elsewhere the main question was whether the full envelope was needed at all, while in Hungary it is whether it becomes accessible at all. This difference also explains the heightened tone of the communication — but it does not justify the absence of an account.

Transparency and anti-corruption policy

  • A8 — Cohesion policy accountability
  • A1 — Public money dashboard
  • A2 — Public procurement transparency

Economy

  • G1 — Data-driven budget
  • G20 — Economic policy impact assessment system (Drucker audit)
  • G21 — Systematic review of state spending

Social policy

  • SZ14 — Cohesion Pillar 2.0 — maximum use of the Hungarian allocation

Foreign policy

  • KP17 — Issue-based coalition building in the EU
  • KP3 — Transparent foreign policy

Proposed new programme point: A risk indicator system for the use of EU funds, with quarterly publication — for the Transparency and anti-corruption policy area.

6.7 List of sources

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

  • [Portfolio] Letelt a határidő, Vitézy bejelentette: több ezer milliárd forintot szereztek meg a magyar költségvetésnek — https://www.portfolio.hu/unios-forrasok/20260831/letelt-a-hatarido-vitezy-bejelentette-tobb-ezer-milliard-forintot-szereztek-meg-a-magyar-koltsegvetesnek-859388
  • [Portfolio] Üt az óra Magyar Péternek és kormányának, éjfélkor eldől, mi sikerült a 3650 milliárd forintos ígéretből — https://www.portfolio.hu/unios-forrasok/20260831/ut-az-ora-magyar-peternek-es-kormanyanak-ejfelkor-eldol-mi-sikerult-a-3650-milliard-forintos-igeretbol-859298
  • [Portfolio] Néhány órával a határidő lejárta előtt jelentette be Magyar Péter, hogy mi lett az uniós pénzek sorsa — https://www.portfolio.hu/unios-forrasok/20260831/nehany-oraval-a-hatarido-lejarta-elott-jelentette-be-magyar-peter-hogy-mi-lett-az-unios-penzek-sorsa-859474
  • [Portfolio] 10 milliárd euró keresi a helyét Magyarországon: mire elég ennyi EU-forrás? — https://www.portfolio.hu/podcast/20260831/10-milliard-euro-keresi-a-helyet-magyarorszagon-mire-eleg-ennyi-eu-forras-859408
  • [HVG] A brüsszeli kasszasöprés utolsó óráiban Magyarország is kikérheti a pénzét — https://hvg.hu/eurologus/20260831_unios-forrasok-jogallamisag-europai-bizottsag-helyreallitasi-forrasok
  • [ATV] Vitézy: jöhet a 10 milliárd euró — a miniszter azt is bejelentette, hogy újraindítaná a budapesti Diákváros beruházását — https://www.atv.hu/belfold/20260831/vitezy-10-milliard-euro/
  • [Mandiner] Vitézy: Teljesültek az uniós források lehívásának feltételei – Karácsony szerint eljöhet Budapest aranykora — https://mandiner.hu/belfold/2026/08/vitezy-teljesultek-az-unios-forrasok-lehivasanak-feltetelei-karacsony-szerint-eljohet-budapest-aranykora
  • [Telex] Magyar Péter a bledi fórumon: Belenéztem Ursula von der Leyen szemébe, hogy itt vagyok a pénzünkért — https://telex.hu/kulfold/2026/08/31/bledi-strategiai-forum-szlovenia-magyar-peter-jansa-babis-plenkovic
  • [24.hu] Magyar Péter: Belenéztem von der Leyen szemébe, hogy itt vagyok a pénzünkért — https://24.hu/kulfold/2026/08/31/magyar-eu-penz-forum-breaking/
  • [Magyar Nemzet] Magyar Péter szerint „egyetlen nap alatt hozzájutott a 16,4 milliárd euróhoz" — https://magyarnemzet.hu/kulfold/2026/08/magyar-peter-bledi-forum-unios-penzek-eu
  • [Magyar Nemzet] Brüsszelből buktatták le Magyar Pétereket az uniós források ügyében — https://magyarnemzet.hu/poszt-trauma/2026/09/brusszelbol-buktattak-magyar-petereket-unios-forrasok
  • [ATV] Új uniós pénzek, új korrupciós kockázatok? — https://www.atv.hu/videok/uj-unios-penzek-uj-korrupcios-kockazatok/
  • [Népszava] Gyorsítósávra kerülnek a fővárosi uniós projektek (title-level reference only) — https://nepszava.hu/

Knowledge base references (literature):

  • 📖 OECD: Economic Surveys — European Union
  • 📖 European Commission (DG REGIO): An Introduction to EU Cohesion Policy
  • 📖 European Economic and Social Committee: Cohesion policy as a fundamental pillar for bringing the EU closer to its citizens

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points; programme point ID: A8, A1, A2)
  • MIAK policy area: Economy (programme points; programme point ID: G1, G20, G21)
  • MIAK policy area: Social policy (programme points; programme point ID: SZ14)
  • MIAK policy area: Foreign policy (programme points; programme point ID: KP17, KP3)
  • MIAK press monitor, 1 September 2026 — topic 1, score: 96/100

Supplementary public data sources:

  • European Commission — Cohesion Open Data Platform and the Kohesio database
  • European Commission — Recovery and Resilience Scoreboard
  • TED — the database of EU public procurement notices
  • State Audit Office — reports on the use of EU funds

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