Part I — Situation overview

On 14 August 2026 two governmental acts, independent of each other, showed the two sides of the same crisis. In New York the American president announced that “pretty soon” he will declare the Strait of Hormuz “territory” of the United States — the strait through which before the war some 20 per cent of global oil shipping passed — and characterised the American naval blockade as a “steel wall”. The Iranian foreign affairs leadership gave a rejecting reply. Experts in international law had indicated earlier as well that the 20 per cent charge on goods passing through the strait raised on one occasion by the president would run counter to international law, because the law of the sea protects the free passage of commercial ships. On the same day the Polish government announced that between 17 and 31 August it is restarting its fuel price reduction package: it is bringing the value added tax on fuels down from 23 per cent to 8 per cent, and the energy minister sets a retail price cap on a daily basis. According to the prime minister the measure reduces prices by roughly one zloty per litre; according to the data of the Polish price monitoring service the average price of 95 petrol is 7.29 zloty and that of diesel 8.09 zloty per litre.

The figures of the Polish package give the most important policy lesson of the day, because Poland has made public what the earlier intervention cost. The version running from the end of March to the end of June, which also contained an excise duty cut, meant an estimated 4.7 billion zloty of budgetary expenditure. The phasing out of the package in itself also played a leading role in Polish inflation accelerating from 2.5 per cent in June to 3.0 per cent in July — the difference is 0.5 percentage points (pp) — at least according to the assessment of the analysts of a large bank. The financing side, however, is missing: the special tax to be levied on the excess profit of fuel distributors, bringing in around 4 billion zloty of revenue — which would have served as the funding of the support — was not signed by the Polish head of state, on the ground that the companies would build the burden into prices. Meanwhile the largest Polish energy company reported record profits for the first half-year. That is, the decision on the support was taken, the one on its funding was not.

On MIAK’s reading these two pieces of news together give one lesson about risk and one about the toolkit, and Hungarian policy is unprepared for both. The essence of the risk side is not which power calls free passage into question, but that the rule itself comes into dispute: Hungary is a landlocked, import-dependent country whose vital economic interest is predictable, neutral passability — regardless of who breaches it. This is the textbook case of MIAK’s foreign policy doctrine (KP4): the position has to be about the norm, not about the actor. The toolkit side is more practical and more uncomfortable than this: the Polish case is instructive because there both the price and the inflationary imprint of the intervention are known, whereas in Hungary, with the price interventions of recent years, what regularly happened was that the announcement of the measure preceded the calculation of its cost. The character of the problem is therefore not whether intervention is needed at a time of a price shock — but whether the rules of the intervention are born before the shock or during it.

Part II — Foundations in the literature

Three sources provide the interpretative frame. The 2025 World Economic Outlook report of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) describes the policy methodology to be followed in an uncertain environment: it recommends that governments work out in advance a baseline scenario and a few severe but conceivable alternatives, assigning to each the expected policy responses — on the fiscal side expressly naming the calibrated use of automatic stabilisers and time-limited, targeted support. In his volume Globalization and Its Discontents the American economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Memorial Prize laureate and former chief economist of the World Bank, gives the supplementary proposition that decides the form of the intervention: the internal distributional consequences of external shocks are not neutral, and the safety net has to be built not after the shock but before it — where this does not happen, the bearing of the risk shifts onto the least resilient groups. And in his work World Order (2014) the American diplomat and foreign policy thinker Henry Kissinger, former United States Secretary of State, gives the frame in which the Hormuz case can be interpreted: every lasting international order rests on two components, commonly accepted rules and a balance of power, and it is the validity of the rules that keeps competition within the order. The detailed treatment of the literature — author by author, with quotations — can be found in the 6.4 Literature in detail section.

Part III — MIAK’s concrete proposal

MIAK proposes three measurable measures. Two domestic, one in foreign policy — but all three answer the same question: what can be decided in advance so that there is no need to improvise at the time of the shock.

3.1 A fuel shock protocol published in advance (by the submission of the 2027 budget)

MIAK proposes that by the submission of the 2027 budget a fuel shock protocol should be drawn up and made public, assigning measures to per-litre price thresholds. The document should contain four columns for every threshold value: which instrument enters (excise duty cut, VAT rate switch, targeted transport transfer, release of reserves); how long it remains in force, with a compulsory sunset date — that is, a point in time fixed in legislation at which the measure ceases of itself; how much it costs the budget monthly; and from what we fund it. The fourth column is the most essential, and it is precisely this that is missing from the Polish case: if the funding is not born at the same time as the decision, the intervention turns either into a deficit or into expenditure forgone elsewhere. The protocol translates the scenario-based recommendation of the International Monetary Fund report (see 6.4.1) into a Hungarian policy instrument, and is the direct substantive filling-out of the programme point on the energy price shock preparedness plan (G25); for planning the funding side the systematic review of state expenditure (G21) and for the impact calculation the economic policy impact assessment system (G20) provide the methodology.

3.2 Targeted transfer instead of general price intervention — and alongside it, if that is unavoidable

MIAK proposes that the primary instrument of the protocol should not be a general price cap but a targeted transfer: time-limited support tied to income or to distance travelled, provided to regularly commuting employees and to small haulage businesses. The argument is not one of principle but of distribution: general price support is regressive, because the amount of the support is proportional to the quantity consumed, so whoever fills up the most receives the most — and that is rarely the most needy household. If price intervention nevertheless proves politically or socially unavoidable, then MIAK asks for three conditions alongside it: let it be publicly given an expiry date, let there be a targeted transfer alongside it for the most exposed groups, and let an ex-post impact assessment be produced on what share of the price reduction reached the consumer. The proposal is the application of the targeted support programme point (SZ1) to energy price shocks, and fits into the logic of the countercyclical fiscal stabiliser (G15): the shock is temporary, and the support has to be so too. Stiglitz’s analysis (see 6.4.2) adds here what Hungarian debates regularly leave out: the absence of a safety net is not a neutral state, but is itself a decision about who should bear the risk.

3.3 A norm-defending Hungarian position on free passage (immediate diplomatic practice)

MIAK proposes that on the question of free passage through international straits Hungary should represent an actor-independent, norm-defending position, and that it should formulate this position in advance, not case by case. This has three elements. The first is the substantive starting point: the transit passage regime of the law of the sea is a commercial and not a military question for Hungary, because it directly determines the input costs of the Hungarian export economy — free passage is not an allied privilege but a public good. The second is procedural: the position has to be represented in the EU framework, during member state consultation, and there too with the same text as in bilateral relations. The third is the analytical background: according to the programme point on geopolitical situation analysis capacity (KP13), the foreign affairs apparatus has to possess its own, continuously updated risk assessment of Hungarian supply routes — no such public analysis is known today. The proposal follows from the doctrine of principle-based pragmatism (KP4), and its implementation frame is the foreign policy crisis management protocol (KP7).

The three proposals are held together by a single principle: one cannot prepare for a shock during the shock. The International Monetary Fund’s recommendation (see 6.4.1) gives the method — a scenario written in advance and a response assigned to it. Stiglitz’s argument (see 6.4.2) tells us what to watch for when designing the response: that the bearing of the risk should not slide over to the weakest groups. And Kissinger’s proposition (see 6.4.3) gives the foreign policy frame in which the Hungarian interest can be formulated: for a small, import-dependent country the validity of the rules is not an abstract value but the cheapest available security.

Part IV — Expected effects and risks

Dimension Expected effect Risk
Economy and budget The threshold–instrument–funding triad fixed in advance makes the budgetary burden of the intervention predictable, and prevents unfunded promises Public thresholds also create market expectations: actors may speculate on the measure near the threshold, which can distort pricing
Society The targeted transfer takes the support to the most exposed groups — commuters, small haulage businesses — not to those consuming the most Targeting involves administrative cost and slower payment; at a sudden price shock the general instrument is faster, even if more wasteful
Environment and climate The time-limited instrument with an expiry date does not become a lasting fossil price subsidy, so it does not work against the aims of the energy transition If the price intervention is repeated and extended, the price kept low conserves the consumption structure and makes the later transition more expensive
Foreign policy The actor-independent, norm-defending position gives a stance defensible in the long term and representable in the EU framework too In the short term it may cause conflict with partners who would be asking precisely for an exception from the norm — this is where the price of consistency arises

The most important question of weighing runs between speed and targeting, and it is a genuine dilemma. At a sudden fuel price shock the general instrument — VAT cut, price cap — takes effect within hours, reaches everybody immediately, and is politically well visible; the targeted transfer, by contrast, takes weeks, requires a register, and some of those entitled are left out for administrative reasons. This is why MIAK’s proposal is formulated in such a way that the general instrument is not prohibited but tied to conditions: if it is introduced, let it have an expiry date, let there be targeting alongside it, and let there be an ex-post accounting of it. The proposal tips over to the risk side if the threshold values of the protocol are set too low: then the system switches on at every smaller price wave, the expenditure becomes permanent, and the result will be precisely that lasting, unfunded price subsidy whose avoidance is the aim of the proposal. The Polish case illustrates this too: the mistake was not the introduction of the package, but that the decision on its funding became detached from it.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth following? (proposed KPIs)

MIAK proposes four performance indicators (KPIs, Key Performance Indicators) for monitoring:

  • The difference of the Hungarian fuel price from the EU average, without tax content and with tax — monthly publication proposed. The dual breakdown is needed because from it one can separate whether the price difference is caused by the market margin or by tax policy.
  • The monthly budgetary expenditure of the price intervention and the ratio of the funding assigned to it — monthly publication proposed if any instrument is active. If this ratio is persistently below one, the intervention produces a deficit.
  • The contribution of energy prices to the consumer price index, in percentage points — monthly monitoring proposed, from statistical data. This measures back how great an inflationary imprint the intervention or its phase-out left.
  • The reach ratio of targeted transfers within the circle of those entitled — quarterly publication proposed if a targeted instrument is operating. From this it emerges whether the targeting really works, or whether the administration filters out those in need.

5.2 Summary

MIAK’s request can be summed up in three points: by the submission of the 2027 budget the fuel shock protocol should be drawn up and made public, fixing for each price threshold the instrument, the duration, the cost and the funding; the primary instrument should be the targeted transfer, and general price intervention only with an expiry date, alongside targeting and with an ex-post accounting; and Hungary should represent an actor-independent, norm-defending position on the question of free passage, in the EU framework as well. From the public MIAK asks that it should not read the fuel price debate merely as a question of price: the price is what is visible, but the real question is who pays for the reduction and when this comes to light.

Two of MIAK’s foundational values are in play in this case. Data-drivenness, because the most important lesson of the Polish case is not the content of the package but that there both the price and the inflationary effect of the intervention are known — it is precisely this public reckoning that is missing from Hungarian practice, and without it every debate becomes a question of belief. And universal representation, because a general price discount apparently goes to everybody, but in fact favours those consuming the most: whoever says universal representation has to see the household as well that does not fill up but waits for a bus. Action against a price shock is just not because it extends to everybody — but because we know how much of it reaches whom.

Part VI — Reasoning and further sources

6.1 The press framing by spectrum

The international public affairs band brought the announcement in a legal and escalation frame. Al Jazeera’s report placed the international legal assessment immediately alongside the verbatim quotation of the presidential sentence — that levying a toll on traffic passing through the strait would run counter to the law of the sea protecting free passage — and also reported the Iranian response, that is, it framed the news as a bilateral conflict but from the direction of the norm. The American news agency report built up the same day from the direction of the ship attack that took place in the strait: there the frame is shipping safety and the direct endangerment of commercial traffic, not the presidential statement.

The regional, Central European band chose the frame of the supply consequence. The materials of an analytical workshop dealing with the Visegrád region examine the effect of the closure of the strait on the region — that is, the question which is the most essential from a Hungarian point of view, and about which the least is said in the Hungarian public sphere: how a Middle Eastern maritime conflict feeds through into the fuel and gas prices of a landlocked, import-dependent economy.

The Polish band framed the news as a governmental toolkit and as a domestic political conflict. The report communicated every parameter of the package in figures — the change of the VAT rate, the duration, the order of the daily price cap, the expected per-litre effect, the estimated cost of the earlier package — and linked to this the dispute between the government and the head of state about the special tax intended as funding. What is striking looking at the spectrum as a whole: the question of funding was made part of the news exclusively by the Polish band, while the international bands discussed the energy market consequence. This difference of framing in itself explains why budgetary funding regularly remains in the blind spot of the debates — even though according to MIAK’s proposal this is the most important element of the decision.

6.2 Facts and data

Data Value Source
The presidential announcement 14 August 2026, New York: the announcement of declaring the Strait of Hormuz American “territory” Al Jazeera
The weight of the strait in global oil shipping before the war some 20% Al Jazeera
Earlier American suggestion a 20% charge to be levied on goods passing through the strait, which legal experts consider contrary to international law Al Jazeera
Iranian reaction a rejecting statement by the foreign affairs leadership Al Jazeera
Duration of the Polish package 17–31 August 2026 Notes from Poland
Value added tax on fuel 23% → 8% Notes from Poland
Price cap the retail price cap is set by the energy minister on a daily basis Notes from Poland
Expected price effect a reduction of roughly 1 zloty / litre Notes from Poland
Baseline average prices 95 petrol 7.29 zloty/litre; diesel 8.09 zloty/litre E-Petrol, quoted by: Notes from Poland
Estimated cost of the earlier package 4.7 billion zloty (end of March – end of June 2026, together with the excise duty cut) Notes from Poland
The special tax intended as funding estimated 4 billion zloty of revenue; the head of state did not sign it Notes from Poland
Inflationary effect Polish inflation accelerated from 2.5% (June) to 3.0% (July), mainly because of fuel prices PKO analysts, quoted by: Notes from Poland

Two remarks for interpretation. First, there is deliberately no Hungarian row in the table: not because the topic does not concern Hungary, but because for Hungarian fuel price interventions no public cost and impact estimate comparable to the Polish one is available — it is precisely the supplying of this that proposal 3.1 asks for. Second, the upper and the lower block contain data of different character: the upper one a political announcement and the legal assessment attached to it, the lower one the quantified parameters of an already adopted package of governmental measures. Both appear in the analysis because the second is the answer to the kind of risk that the first embodies — but conflating them would lead to a mistaken conclusion: the Polish package was triggered not by the presidential announcement, but by the price shock that has been running for months.

6.3 Policy dimensions

  • Economy (programme points) — the energy price shock preparedness plan (programme point ID: G25) is the direct programme-point antecedent of proposal 3.1: it demands precisely the advance fixing of the threshold–measure–funding triad; the countercyclical fiscal stabiliser (programme point ID: G15) gives the principle according to which the response to a temporary shock also has to be temporary; the economic policy impact assessment system (programme point ID: G20) gives the methodology of the ex-ante and ex-post calculation of the intervention; and the systematic review of state expenditure (programme point ID: G21) gives the frame for planning the funding side;
  • Foreign policy (programme points) — the doctrine of principle-based pragmatism (programme point ID: KP4) gives the principled basis of the norm-defending position; the foreign policy crisis management protocol (programme point ID: KP7) gives its implementation frame; and geopolitical situation analysis capacity (programme point ID: KP13) gives the missing analytical background which would continuously assess the risks of Hungarian supply routes;
  • Social policy (programme points) — the targeted support programme point (programme point ID: SZ1) gives the direct basis of proposal 3.2: the distributional effect of general price support and of targeted transfer is not equivalent;
  • Environment and climate (programme points) — energy market shock resilience (programme point ID: K7) covers the physical and system-level side of preparedness; and the energy transition plan (programme point ID: K2) gives the long-term perspective according to which a lasting fossil price subsidy increases the cost of the transition;
  • Transport and infrastructure (background material) — the cost structure of commuting and haulage, from which the target groups of proposal 3.2 can be determined.

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 International Monetary Fund: World Economic Outlook 2025

On the policy methodology to be followed in a high-uncertainty environment, the report records the following:

“Amid heightened uncertainty, wider use of scenario analysis can strengthen policy preparedness and credibility. Authorities should develop a baseline scenario and a few severe but plausible alternatives […]. Each scenario should be accompanied by an outline of possible policy responses […]; for fiscal policy, the calibrated use of automatic stabilizers and time-bound, targeted support.”

The report also gives an empirical background: alongside global supply and demand factors, the development of energy prices is regularly shaped by temporary price spikes linked to conflicts, and the literature has demonstrated the inflationary pass-through of these in advanced and developing economies alike.

The Hungarian reading is direct. The report’s recommendation is practically word for word the content of the energy price shock preparedness plan programme point: it is not about the extent of the intervention but about the fact that the rules of the intervention have to be written before the shock. Hungarian practice, by contrast, has been in the reverse order in recent years: the announcement of measures usually preceded the public calculation of their cost and their funding. The report’s two key terms — time-limited and targeted — are exactly the two conditions that proposals 3.1 and 3.2 would build into the Hungarian protocol, and whose absence in the Polish case too led to the disturbance on the funding side.

📖 Source: International Monetary Fund (IMF): World Economic Outlook 2025

6.4.2 Joseph E. Stiglitz: Globalization and Its Discontents

The recurring proposition of Stiglitz’s volume is that exposure to external shocks and the institutions serving to manage risk are not built up at the same time, and this lag is itself the problem:

“Just as in many countries the pace and sequencing of reforms has resulted in job destruction outpacing job creation, so too has the exposure to risk outpaced the ability to create institutions for coping with risk, including the creation of effective safety nets.”

The volume also formulates this same idea as a question of sequencing: it regards as the gravest mistake the case where the adjustment is carried out before the building of the safety net, because the social cost then does not disappear but is shifted.

The Hungarian reading yields two lessons. The first is that when designing a response to a price shock it is not enough to look at the macro-level average effect: the same per-litre price reduction means something completely different to a skilled worker commuting 50 kilometres a day and to a pensioner who rarely uses a car — the general instrument does not target the former either, and gives practically nothing to the latter. The second is that the absence of a safety net is not a neutral starting state: if there is no targeted channel built up in advance, then the decision-maker under duress reaches for the general instrument, because that is the only one that works immediately. This is why proposal 3.2 asks that the channel of the targeted transfer should stand ready before the shock — not in order to prohibit the general instrument, but so that there should be a real choice.

📖 Source: Joseph E. Stiglitz: Globalization and Its Discontents

6.4.3 Henry Kissinger: World Order

At the beginning of the volume Kissinger records the two-component definition on which his entire line of thought is built:

“Any system of world order, to be sustainable, must be accepted as just — not only by the leaders, but also by the citizens. It bases itself on two components: a set of commonly accepted rules that define the limits of permissible action and a balance of power that enforces restraint where rules break down.”

To this he also adds that agreement on the legitimacy of the existing arrangement does not eliminate competition, but helps it to take place as “adjustments within the existing order” rather than as a fundamental challenge to it.

The Hungarian reading follows directly from this, and precisely for that reason is not actor-dependent. A territorial claim over an international strait — by whomever announced — is not an adjustment within the rules but a calling into question of the validity of the rule; and in Kissinger’s frame it is precisely such steps that turn the order into the terrain of bare power relations. For a landlocked, import-dependent country this is the worst outcome, because on the terrain of bare power relations it has nothing to show. The Hungarian interest is therefore that the rule should remain valid — and it follows from this that the Hungarian position has to be about the norm even when it is an ally that calls the norm into question. This is the content of the doctrine of principle-based pragmatism (KP4): not neutrality and not rigidity of principle, but consistency in which rule we defend.

📖 Source: Henry Kissinger: World Order

6.5 International comparison

European practice of recent years shows three patterns in governmental responses to fuel price shocks. The Polish model is that of fast and broad intervention: a tax rate cut and an official price, for short, extendable periods, with a high budgetary cost and a well measurable inflationary imprint — its strength is the immediate effect, its weakness the unsettled state of the funding side. The German practice was rather that of the mixed solution: alongside a temporary fuel price discount there was a cheap, nationally valid public transport pass, that is, part of the intervention did not reduce the price but offered an alternative for substituting consumption. The French route is that of gradual targeting: the general per-litre discount was over time replaced by an income-linked benefit provided to lower-income households regularly travelling to work by car.

The common lesson of the three solutions is that general price intervention was everywhere faster and politically more rewarding, while the targeted instrument everywhere proved cheaper and more durable — and that the transition between the two was everywhere difficult along the way, because withdrawing a discount already received carries a political cost. This mapping gives the strongest practical argument for MIAK’s proposal: the transition is manageable if the date of the phase-out is already known at the time of introduction. For this the Hungarian system does not need to invent a new instrument, but has to decide in advance when it uses which.

Economy

  • G15 — Countercyclical fiscal stabiliser
  • G20 — Economic policy impact assessment system (Drucker audit)
  • G21 — Systematic review of state expenditure
  • G25 — Energy price shock preparedness plan

Foreign policy

  • KP4 — Doctrine of principle-based pragmatism
  • KP7 — Foreign policy crisis management protocol
  • KP13 — Geopolitical situation analysis capacity

Social policy

  • SZ1 — Targeted support

Environment and climate

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

Proposed new programme point: A public fuel shock protocol: instrument, duration, cost and funding fixed per price threshold — to the Economy area.

6.7 List of sources

Press sources (MIAK foreign press monitor, 15 August 2026 — topic 1):

Knowledge base references (professional literature and reports):

  • 📖 International Monetary Fund (IMF): World Economic Outlook 2025
  • 📖 Joseph E. Stiglitz: Globalization and Its Discontents
  • 📖 Henry Kissinger: World Order

Note: the local file path of the sources does not appear in the visible text of the blog — only the author and the title.

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Economy (programme points; programme point ID: G15, G20, G21, G25)
  • MIAK policy area: Foreign policy (programme points; programme point ID: KP4, KP7, KP13)
  • MIAK policy area: Social policy (programme points; programme point ID: SZ1)
  • MIAK policy area: Environment and climate (programme points; programme point ID: K2, K7)
  • MIAK policy area: Transport and infrastructure (background material)
  • MIAK foreign press monitor, 15 August 2026 — topic 1, score: 95/100

Supplementary public data sources:

  • Hungarian Energy and Public Utility Regulatory Authority (MEKH) — fuel price and energy market time series
  • Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH) — consumer price index, energy basket
  • European Commission — Weekly Oil Bulletin (member state fuel prices with and without tax)
  • International Energy Agency (IEA) — Oil Market Report
  • ENTSO-G — gas flow data

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