The key achievements of a project to improve the financing of local services and their effective delivery in Hungary were presented at a meeting of the Project Advisory Group and the Local Finance Working Group in Budapest on 28 October 2024. The joint EU/CoE project ‘Local Government Public Finance Development and Municipal Capacity Building In Hungary’, implemented by the Centre of Expertise for Multilevel Governance at the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, started in September 2022 and will close at the end of 2024. During the meeting, representatives of local government associations, municipalities and central authorities discussed the project’s findings and highlighted the importance of their follow-up.
Key project outputs include:
- A Policy Advice Report on the Local Business Tax and the Solidarity Contribution offering recommendations and good practice examples to enhance equalisation measures;
- A Report on the piloting of the Standard Expenditure Needs (SEN) approach, providing insights into financing requirements and outputs of essential social services across all Hungarian municipalities, with a focus on elderly care;
- An innovative data platform to support evidence-based planning and policy making which will be hosted by the Hungarian National Association of Local Authorities (TÖOSZ).
These and other project outputs are framed by the European Charter of Local Self-Government and dedicated standards on financial equalisation and the financing of local services as well as their efficient and effective implementation, such as Recommendation Rec(2005)1 of the Committee of Ministers to the Council of Europe member states.
This activity was organised by the Centre of Expertise for Multilevel Governance with the Hungarian National Association of Local Authorities. The project is co-financed by the European Commission (DG REFORM) under the Technical Support Instrument.
