The municipalities of Alsómocsolád, Alsóörs, Bácsalmás, Budapest Capital District XIII., Nagykovácsi, Rigács, Szarvas, Tápiószele and Zalaszentgrót were awarded the European Label of Governance Excellence (ELoGE) at a ceremony held in Budapest on 27 November 2025, with the support of the Centre of Expertise for Multilevel Governance at the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe.

ELoGE is a self-assessment tool composed of 12 Principles of good democratic governance, 36 targets and 72 indicators; it is awarded to municipalities which can demonstrate that they have achieved a high level of performance against those standards.

Representatives of the awarded municipalities emphasised the value of the ELoGE assessment process for ensuring European standards of democratic participation, public ethics and continuous improvements to local governance. In the words of Alsóörs’ mayor Zsolt Hebling, ‘the ELoGE label is an incentive to even better serve our community’. With the process of preparing the Council of Europe’s New Democratic Pact for Europe underway, the event highlighted the crucial role of local authorities in advancing democratic practice and innovation.

ELoGE is awarded based on a successful evaluation against the Council of Europe’s Principles of Good Democratic Governance. ELoGE is implemented in Hungary by the Hungarian National Association of Local Authorities (TÖOSZ) in partnership with the Ministry of Public Administration and Regional Development, the Association of Small Towns, the Hungarian Village Association and the Homo Oecologicus Foundation.