Part I — Situation overview

According to Politico’s report the European Commission has tied to a deadline next week the release of more than 10 billion euros — in another piece the paper specified 10.4 billion euros — of recovery funds, which the body froze on account of rule-of-law concerns during the previous government. In the same week foreign minister Anita Orbán filed a criminal complaint with the prosecutor general over the 2020 pandemic procurements of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. According to EUobserver’s details the ministry purchased in March and April 2020 in procedures exempted from the public procurement rules. Of the total of 19,002 ventilators procured on account of the epidemic, 16,853 were bought by the ministry, for some 300 billion forints — at the then exchange rate of roughly 355 forints to the euro, approximately 845 million euros. The internal investigation found a problem in the questions of quantity, price, usability and economic reasonableness alike, and the complaint refers to a suspicion of misappropriation causing particularly substantial pecuniary disadvantage.

The third thread is an interview. János Bóka, leader of the 52-member parliamentary group of Fidesz, acknowledged in his first big interview given to Politico that “part of the criticism concerning democratic backsliding had a basis”, and indicated that his party is ready to cooperate on anti-corruption measures, and indeed supports the restoration of the competences of the Constitutional Court — which he called one of the cornerstones of the modern European rule-of-law system. In the same interview, however, he also announced that in the event of a future constitution-making majority he would withdraw the limitation of the prime minister to two terms and the limit of three mandates for members of parliament, and he criticised several constitutional steps of the Tisza government. On the same day Euractiv published a piece on the procurement dispute around the Hungarian national holiday, in which Ákos Hadházy, former independent member of parliament, put it that the conduct of the new government is beginning to recall the reflexes of the previous system. Referring to G7’s investigation, the article describes how the winner of the fireworks tender consulted the earlier organiser weeks before the official call for tenders, and that 4 billion forints were spent on the event this year instead of the 17.5 billion previously planned.

According to MIAK’s reading the three threads run out into a single question, and that question is not whether the Hungarian government meets Monday’s deadline. The stake is whether behind the rules adopted by the deadline there is an institutional structure which binds a subsequent parliamentary majority as well. János Bóka’s sentence states precisely this openly: if the guarantees rest only on a parliamentary majority and not on automatism, then the present change lasts exactly as long as the present majority. This problem is government-neutral — it applies to the guarantees now adopted just as it does to those which a future government might adopt.

Part II — Foundations in the literature

The conceptual framework of the question consists of three sources. Joseph Raz (Israeli-British legal philosopher, one of the leading authors of legal positivism) treats it as an independent item among the formal requirements of the rule of law that law should consist of general, open and relatively constant rules — for him stability is not a pleasant side-effect of the rule of law but a constituent element of it, because without it law cannot guide behaviour. Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) lays down that the Union is founded — among other things — on the value of the rule of law, and that these values are common to the member states; this is the primary legal basis to which the conditionality of the release of funds can be traced back, that is, the conditions are not objects of bargaining but enforcements of an already undertaken community of values. And Niccolò Machiavelli (Florentine political thinker, one of the founders of modern political theory) described the asymmetry which determines the fate of every reform: the enemies of the new order are determined, because they profited from the old one, while its beneficiaries are lukewarm defenders, because their profit is still uncertain. Together the three sources give the direction of the answer: a reform lasts if its stability does not depend on the enthusiasm of its defenders. 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 is about meeting Monday’s deadline — that process is closed by the government and the Commission — but about what comes after it.

3.1 An itemised, machine-readable register of the pandemic procurements (by 31 March 2027)

The complete list of items of the 2020 epidemic procurements — date, supplier, quantity, unit price, the legal basis of the procurement and the actual use — should go into a public, downloadable and queryable database, irrespective of what stage the prosecutorial procedure is at and with what result it closes. The separation of the two processes is not a procedural formality: the question of criminal responsibility is an individual question of evidence, in which the prosecution service decides on bringing charges and exclusively the court decides on establishing responsibility, whereas the transparency of the use of public money does not depend on the outcome of the procedure. In the case of the item of 16,853 units the most important datum, still not public, is not the price but the actual use: how many devices were put into operation, how many remained in storage, and what became of them. This proposal is the direct application of the A1 public money dashboard and the A2 public procurement transparency programme points.

3.2 An automatic subsequent audit of emergency public procurement exemptions (from the year 2027, retrospectively to 2020)

Every procedure conducted under an exemption from the public procurement rules or in a negotiated procedure without prior publication should be subject to an obligatory subsequent review within 12 months of the conclusion of the contract, and the findings of the review should be public even if no irregularity was uncovered. The key condition is the government-neutrality of the standard: the rule should apply to the present government’s own emergency procedures just as it does to those of 2020 — without this the provision is not an instrument of accountability but a retrospective political instrument. This self-binding is the only way for the rule to survive the next change of government as well: a provision which binds the government of the day is harder to withdraw than one which measures only the predecessor. The proposal connects to the A2 programme point, and from the side of EU funds to the A8 cohesion accountability.

3.3 A reversibility examination for every guarantee tied to an EU condition (in the legislative stage of October–December)

For each of the institutional guarantees tied to EU conditions a public analysis should be prepared along a single question: does this rule survive a change of government and a constitution-making majority? For every guarantee the analysis should record at what level of the sources of law it lives (ordinary act, cardinal act, constitutional provision or EU obligation), and what majority is needed for its withdrawal. Where the answer is that it can be withdrawn by a simple or two-thirds majority, there MIAK’s proposal is not a further two-thirds rule but the strengthening of institutional automatism: an obligation of public data provision, reports due at times fixed in advance, and indicators verifiable by an external, non-governmental actor, because these are protected by the customary practice of publicity as well, not only by the text of the legislation. This is the direct application of the I10 constitutional stress test, and international experience supports it too: yesterday’s foreign monitor mentioned the integrity act of a neighbouring country, adopted for the sake of EU funds, whose amendment was promised almost immediately.

The three proposals are linked by a single principle: a reform delivered by the deadline is not the end of institutional change but its most vulnerable moment. Raz’s requirement of stability and Machiavelli’s proposition of asymmetry (see 6.4.3) point in the same direction — the defenders of a newly introduced rule are always weaker than its opponents, and therefore the rule has to be built not on enthusiasm but on automatism.

Part IV — Expected effects and risks

Dimension Expected effect Risk
Budget The release of the funds of more than 10 billion euros is the largest single item of the 2027 budgetary path; the burden of pre-financing ceases The timing of the arrival of the funds is uncertain; budget planning cannot build on it with calendar precision
Legal certainty The reversibility examination makes public which guarantees rest on a weak basis in the sources of law The result of the examination can also be used as a political argument: “this can be withdrawn anyway” — the report therefore has to appear together with proposals
Public procurement The automatic subsequent audit in itself reduces the number of emergency exemptions In a genuine emergency the administrative burden may slow things down; maintaining an accelerated procedure alongside the audit obligation is necessary
International standing Itemised publicity may bring a measurable, lasting improvement in the rule-of-law reports The international credit of a “reform” built on the replacement of persons is short-lived if institutional change does not follow

The main question for consideration is the dual nature of conditionality. In the short term the EU deadline is the most effective compulsion to reform, but over a longer horizon it is the weakest motivation for reform: what is made to an external deadline is experienced by internal actors as an alien obligation, and is amended at the first opportunity. This is not a theoretical risk — the Bóka interview gives an example of exactly this pattern. MIAK therefore proposes that the government should communicate and justify the rules now adopted not as the fulfilment of an EU condition but as its own policy decision, because withdrawing a measure presented as the fulfilment of an external expectation is always politically cheaper.

The second tipping point is proportionality. If accountability is directed exclusively at the affairs of the previous government, then the credibility of the standard collapses at the first case of its own — the debate around the events of 20 August is exactly such an example, and according to Euractiv’s report the international press already reads the Hungarian process in this frame. A rule is a rule if, with effect promulgated in advance, it binds the present government too.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth following? (proposed KPIs)

The performance indicators below (KPIs, Key Performance Indicators) are MIAK’s proposals, not governmental decisions. They are worth following:

  1. The completeness of the pandemic procurement database — for what percentage of the 19,002 devices itemised data are available by 31 March 2027 (proposed target value: above 95 per cent), and within this for how many devices the actual use is known.
  2. The proportion of emergency exemptions within all public procurement procedures, broken down by year. This indicator can be formed on the model of the target figure of the A2 programme point relating to single-bid procedures, and it applies to the present government’s own procedures as well.
  3. The coverage of subsequent audits — for what percentage of exceptional procedures the review was completed within 12 months, and in how many cases the finding became public.
  4. The distribution of guarantees across the sources of law — what percentage of the institutional guarantees identified in the reversibility examination rest on legislation amendable by a simple majority. Proposed target: this proportion should fall from year to year.

5.2 Summary

MIAK’s request to the government and to the National Assembly is that they should treat Monday’s deadline not as an end point but as a starting point: the itemised, machine-readable register of the pandemic procurements should be completed, the automatic subsequent audit of emergency public procurement exemptions should enter into force — retrospectively to 2020, but bindingly on the present government as well — and for every guarantee tied to an EU condition a public analysis should be prepared on what majority can withdraw it. The request to the public is simpler still: in the coming months the standard should not be whether the money has arrived, but how much of the rules leading to it remains after the next change of government too.

Two MIAK foundational values are in play in this matter. Accountability, because the publicity of the use of public money cannot depend on the result with which a criminal procedure closes — the two processes answer different questions, and it is publicity that works under both governments. And being ideology-free, because MIAK treats the statement of the leader of the Fidesz parliamentary group neither as a declaration to be rejected nor as a conversion: the support for restoring the competences of the Constitutional Court is a substantive position pointing in the direction of the rule of law, while the announcement of the intention to withdraw is a substantive position worsening legal certainty — both have to be weighed on their own, independently of the party allegiance of the person announcing them.

Part VI — Justifications and further sources

6.1 The framing of the press, spectrum by spectrum

All four sources processed are international, and therefore instead of the Hungarian bands it is the editorial approaches that differ from one another — but the difference is just as instructive.

Politico’s two pieces use the frame of party political realignment. The focus of the big interview with the parliamentary group leader is how the former governing party positions itself in opposition, and within this the paper highlights both the admitting sentence and the one promising withdrawal — that is, Politico reads the Hungarian institutional question as the story of a party’s reorganisation. The paper’s podcast piece draws this frame still more sharply with the raising of the possibility of a return, and here it also communicates the specified amount of the funds. In this frame the item of 10 billion euros is background information, not an independent topic.

EUobserver, by contrast, chose a procedural, fact-finding frame: in its series counting the days of the Hungarian government it describes the ventilator affair itemised, with figures — the number of units, the forint amount and the euro value calculated at the then exchange rate — and it expressly frames the affair as the first big test of the new government’s anti-corruption drive. This approach is the only one of the four which also communicates the findings of the internal investigation of the procurement (quantity, price, usability, economic reasonableness).

Euractiv uses the frame of continuity: according to the opening of its article, old habits die hard, and it draws a parallel between the procurement dispute around the Hungarian national holiday and the reflexes of the previous system. This paper communicates the only datum which counts in favour of the present government — the significant fall in the sum spent on the event — yet it features this not as a defensive argument but as a nuancing of the picture. According to MIAK this frame is the most accurate of the three, because it is not about the actors but about the pattern; at the same time Euractiv too makes no distinction between the lack of publicity in the preparation of a decision and a proven irregularity, although the two permit different conclusions.

What is missing from all four pieces: none of them asks the question at what level of the sources of law the guarantees now adopted live, and by what majority they can be withdrawn — even though one of them carries a quotation about precisely this.

6.2 Facts and data

Data Value Source
The recovery funds that may be released more than EUR 10 bn; in another piece by Politico EUR 10.4 bn Politico Europe, 27–28 August 2026
The deadline for the conditions next Monday Politico Europe, EUobserver, 27 August 2026
Total number of ventilators procured on account of the epidemic 19,002 units EUobserver, 27 August 2026
Of these, the procurement of the foreign ministry 16,853 units EUobserver, 27 August 2026
The value of the procurement approx. HUF 300 bn (approx. EUR 845 m at the then exchange rate of HUF 355/EUR) EUobserver, 27 August 2026
The period and legal basis of the procurement March–April 2020, under an exemption from the public procurement rules EUobserver, 27 August 2026
The size of the Fidesz parliamentary group 52 members Politico Europe, 27 August 2026
This year’s cost of the national holiday events HUF 4 bn (approx. EUR 10 m), instead of the previously planned HUF 17.5 bn (approx. EUR 48 m) Euractiv, 27 August 2026

A methodological note: the value of 845 million euros is a conversion calculated at the 2020 exchange rate, not a present-day value — comparing the two data makes sense only with the exchange rate indicated. The forint amount is the authentic datum, the euro value is an indicative conversion.

6.3 Policy dimensions

  • Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points) — the public channel of public money data (programme point ID: A1), public procurement anomaly screening and the proportion of exceptional procedures (programme point ID: A2), project-level publicity of the use of EU funds (programme point ID: A8), as well as the measurement of checks and balances (programme point ID: A6);
  • Justice (programme points) — the annual constitutional review provides the methodological model of the reversibility examination (programme point ID: I10);
  • Foreign policy (background material) — treating EU conditionality as a planning parameter, not as a bargaining position; the publicity of the Hungarian negotiating mandate.

A public law clarification which MIAK maintains in all its communication belonging here: a minister may file a criminal complaint, but the ordering of an investigation and the bringing of charges are decided exclusively by the prosecution service, which is an independent constitutional body, is not part of the administration of justice, and accepts instructions from no one in a specific case. On the question of guilt exclusively the court decides. Conflating a governmental announcement with the state of a criminal procedure is precisely the error which MIAK held against the previous government — the standard is government-neutral.

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 Joseph Raz: The Authority of Law

Raz clarifies the concept of the rule of law by building on the difference between its everyday and its professional meaning. According to his argument, for the lawyer everything is law which meets the validity conditions of the system — the layperson, by contrast, understands by law a narrower subset of it:

“For him the law is essentially a set of open, general and relatively stable laws. Government by law and not by men is not a tautology if ’law’ means general, open and relatively stable law.”

From this follows the essence of the doctrine as well: particular, individual legal acts have to be subordinated to general, open and stable rules, and rule-making has to be guided by general rules known in advance and relatively constant. Applied to the Hungarian situation: legislation of which the second largest parliamentary force announces already in the year of its adoption that it would withdraw it with a future majority is, in the Razian sense, not deficient but fails to fulfil one of the constituent elements of the rule of law — relative constancy. It is not a matter of a rule holding for ever: the essence of democratic legislation is that law can be changed. The requirement is that the order of change should itself be regulated and predictable, and that legal subjects should be able to adjust their conduct to the rule. A constitutional guarantee that can be disputed annually does not fulfil this function.

📖 Source: Joseph Raz: The Authority of Law

6.4.2 Treaty on European Union (TEU), Article 2

The legal basis of conditionality is not the Commission’s discretion but a primary source of law. Article 2 of the TEU puts it thus:

“The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States.”

The provision is important from two points of view for today’s topic. On the one hand the rule of law features as the foundation of EU membership, not as an ancillary expectation attached to membership — and therefore the conditions of the release of funds are not external demands but enforcements of an already undertaken obligation. On the other hand the article states that these values are common to the Member States, that is, EU law presupposes member state commitment, it does not substitute for it. This structure explains why legislation adopted by the deadline is not sufficient: fulfilling the EU condition would be evidence of commitment, but it is that only if the rule survives into the years after the deadline. If it does not, then the fulfilment remains formal, and the community of values behind it cannot be demonstrated.

📖 Source: Consolidated version of the Treaty on European Union, Article 2

6.4.3 Niccolò Machiavelli: The Prince

Treating the difficulties of acquiring power, Machiavelli formulates the proposition that has been the basic text of the political economy of reforms ever since:

“there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.”

The essence of the observation is asymmetry: the beneficiaries of the old order have a precisely knowable and concentrated interest in its restoration, whereas the winners of the new order are dispersed and their gain is uncertain, and therefore according to Machiavelli human incredulity — distrust towards new things in the absence of one’s own experience — breeds caution on the defenders’ side as well.

In the Hungarian situation this asymmetry appears in measurable form. The beneficiary of the institutional guarantees tied to EU conditions is the public as a whole — that is, a dispersed, unorganised group, not a single member of which feels the benefit directly. The circle of those interested in withdrawal, by contrast, can be precisely defined, and the announced intention is concrete too. From this follows MIAK’s proposal 3.3: since the enthusiasm of the defenders cannot be built on, the guarantees have to be founded on automatisms — obligatory data publication, reports with deadlines fixed in advance, external indicators — whose withdrawal requires more than political will, because their absence becomes visible immediately.

📖 Source: Niccolò Machiavelli: A fejedelem (The Prince)

6.5 International comparison

The Central European region has supplied several cases of the risk of reversibility in recent years. The most recent example was recorded by MIAK’s foreign monitor on 27 August: in a neighbouring member state an integrity act was adopted for the release of significant EU funds, and then almost immediately an amendment proposal went on the agenda — the act was thus born, but the institutional effect attached to it did not last longer than a few weeks. This pattern is recurrent: the impact assessments of conditionality procedures regularly show that a lasting gap remains between the adoption of legislation and its practical application if the adoption was compelled by an external deadline.

The positive pattern, by contrast, is known from those member states where the transparency obligation lives not as an ad hoc rule but in the form of continuous data provision. Where the state publishes all its contracts obligatorily, machine-readably and comprehensively, the withdrawal of the provision is difficult because its absence becomes visible immediately, to everyone — the interruption of the data flow is in itself a political event. This is precisely the logic of automatism which MIAK recommends in proposal 3.3: the stability of a rule is best protected not by its level in the sources of law but by the visibility of its breach.

Transparency and anti-corruption policy

  • A1 — Public money dashboard
  • A2 — Public procurement transparency
  • A8 — Cohesion policy accountability
  • A6 — Strengthening checks and balances

Justice

  • I10 — Constitutional “stress test”

Proposed new programme point: Reversibility examination — the obligatory, public analysis of the level in the sources of law and of the withdrawability of institutional guarantees tied to EU conditions, with a proposal for reinforcement based on automatism — for the Transparency and anti-corruption policy area.

6.7 List of sources

Press sources (MIAK foreign press monitor, 28 August 2026 — topic 1):

Knowledge base references (literature):

  • 📖 Joseph Raz: The Authority of Law
  • 📖 Consolidated version of the Treaty on European Union (Article 2)
  • 📖 Niccolò Machiavelli: A fejedelem (The Prince)

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points; programme point ID: A1, A2, A8, A6)
  • MIAK policy area: Justice (programme points; programme point ID: I10)
  • MIAK policy area: Foreign policy (background material)
  • MIAK foreign press monitor, 28 August 2026 — topic 1, score: 93/100

Supplementary public data sources:

  • European Commission — milestone tracker of the Hungarian recovery plan and the Hungarian chapter of the rule-of-law report
  • Public Procurement Authority — annual report, statistics of negotiated procedures without prior publication
  • State Audit Office — reports on the pandemic procurements
  • European Public Prosecutor’s Office — annual report, Hungarian case numbers

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