Flood of Resources and a Conceptual Change – A Decade of Changes in Territorial Development with an Outlook to the V4 Countries

Abstract

Between 2007 and 2013, Hun­gary re­ceived re­sources from the European Union in the value of around HUF 8,000 bil­lion, while the coun­try is eli­gible to use funds of an ad­di­tional 25 bil­lion Euros (ap­prox­im­ately equi­val­ent to HUF 8,300 bil­lion) up until 2020. Since the time of join­ing, Hun­gary has been one of the net be­ne­fi­ciary mem­ber states, since funds re­ceived from the EU budget ex­ceed re­spect­ive con­tri­bu­tions. The pos­it­ive bal­ance adds up to around HUF 13,500 bil­lion since ac­ces­sion. The draw­down of funds was a pri­or­ity for the na­tional gov­ern­ment com­ing to power in 2010 and to this end; it ini­ti­ated major changes in ter­rit­orial de­vel­op­ment policies. As a pre­val­ent prac­tice, plan­ning was ad­jus­ted to the EU’s policies just as much as to the na­tional stra­tegic ob­ject­ives, with the in­tent of pro­mot­ing eco­nomic growth. Fur­ther­more, the in­sti­tu­tional back­ground was cent­ral­ized and ex­pec­ted to op­er­ate with im­proved ef­fi­ciency. However, in gov­ern­mental ex-post ana­lyses, there are oc­ca­sional sharp cri­ti­cisms of the ef­fect­ive­ness of major struc­tural changes. What were the major char­ac­ter­ist­ics of the ter­rit­orial de­vel­op­ment sys­tems in the period between 2007 and 2013? What changes oc­curred in the sub­sequent 2014–2020 mul­tian­nual fin­an­cial frame­work? This study ana­lyses the main mo­tifs of sys­tem change and modi­fic­a­tion. The aim of this study is to provide a fair and bal­anced as­sess­ment of the period through ex­amin­ing these key areas.