Part I — Situation overview

On 6 August the Hungarian energy crisis crossed over from a hydrological news item into a market-structure news item. Euractiv reported in a leading position that the unprecedented nuclear capacity shortfall may open the way towards a comprehensive reshaping of the Hungarian electricity market — and that the country is in consequence also leaning on Ukraine’s help. The facts on which the paper builds are known: after the historic low of the Danube on 29 July the output reduction of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant began, the country lost almost half of its electricity generating capacity, and evening prices jumped, while temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius kept consumption high. At his Wednesday on-site visit the Prime Minister indicated that it is the water gauge that determines the situation, and that the plant can be shut down entirely if the water level falls further.

The substantive news, however, is not about the plant but about prices. According to the paper the Hungarian wholesale price falls to zero at noon, because solar generation dominates the market, while at night it rises towards 500 euros per megawatt hour — on Thursday it was above 300 euros. Households, by contrast, pay the same in every hour of the day. According to Zsuzsanna Pató, senior adviser of the Regulatory Assistance Project, a research institute dealing with energy regulation, “the Hungarian electricity tariff structure is from the 20th century”: prices work as if the network served identical consumers from large, stable sources, while — as she put it — “some have an electric car, a heat pump and their own rooftop solar, others only a television, a fridge and a few lamps”. A Hungarian diplomat told the paper openly that it is clear habits have to change, because tariffs at present do not incentivise the reduction of night-time consumption. The background figure to this is that smart meters are installed in only 11 per cent of households — far behind the European comparison — and a time-based tariff cannot be chosen without a smart meter. The paper also recalls that Hungary is the only EU country where households pay significantly less for electricity than industry. The cost of imports is meanwhile quantifiable: according to the estimate of government officials, between 275 and 550 million euros is being spent on the few hundred gigawatt hours that sustain supply in the evenings.

By MIAK’s reading a real and necessary reform has here met the worst possible timing — and it is precisely this situation that calls for a policy position of its own. There are strong arguments for reshaping the tariff structure: in a system where the wholesale price is zero during the day and several hundred euros at night, the household that always pays the same receives no signal whatever about when its consumption is expensive — that is, the largest freely available reserve, the shifting of consumption in time, remains unused. But market opening is not a single decision, it is a series of decisions, and their sequence decides the outcome. If the opening of the wholesale market and the reshaping of the household price protection net end up in a single package, then out of a technical necessity the most political question of all is created at once — and the package brings down both of its halves. This is why MIAK is not speaking for or against liberalisation, but asking for the conditions of the process.

Part II — Literature foundation

Before turning to MIAK’s proposals it is worth setting out the scientific frame in which a regulatory window opening in the middle of a crisis can be interpreted. The central concept of the volume Globalization and Its Discontents by Joseph E. Stiglitz (American economist, laureate of the Nobel memorial prize in economics, former chief economist of the World Bank) is not the rightness of liberalisation but the sequencing and pacing of reforms: through the experience of several countries the author shows that the same market-opening step can be beneficial or destructive depending on what happened beforehand — whether there is a safety net, regulatory capacity, working competition. The work Corruption and Government by Susan Rose-Ackerman (American lawyer-economist, one of the founders of the economic theory of corruption) describes the other risk: by her analysis the largest space for abuse arises where the state distributes scarce, valuable benefits and where the decision-maker has wide discretion — and an accelerated market-opening package invoking a crisis creates exactly such a situation. The two authors together give the two legs of the MIAK position: sequence, and the limitation of discretion. The detailed treatment of the literature — author by author, with quotations — can be found in the 6.4 Literature in detail section.

📖 Source: Joseph E. Stiglitz: Globalization and Its Discontents; Susan Rose-Ackerman: Corruption and Government — Causes, Consequences, and Reform

Part III — MIAK’s concrete proposal

MIAK proposes three measurable measures. None of them disputes the content of market opening: all three concern the procedure in which the decision is made.

3.1 Separating wholesale market opening from household price protection (at the adoption of the legislative programme)

The greatest procedural risk of the present situation is that the two questions end up in a single package. The structure of the wholesale market — the operation of the intraday and balancing markets, the pricing of flexibility services, the market entry of storage — is a professional question on which substantive debate can be conducted. The future of household price regulation, by contrast, is the most sensitive matter in Hungarian politics: Euractiv too recalls that the utility price cut has been deciding political careers for decades. MIAK proposes that at the adoption of the legislative programme the government should state that the two subject matters will come before Parliament in separate laws and on separate schedules, and should publish the sequence of the steps: which wholesale element enters into force when, and what remains unchanged on the household side until then. The legal frame matters here: the regulatory frames of the electricity market are shaped by statute and by the decisions of the Hungarian Energy and Public Utility Regulatory Authority, not by a ministerial declaration of intent — stating the sequence is therefore not a communications step but a legislative planning one. The proposal follows from the G5 competition policy and the K2 energy transition programme points. In Stiglitz’s frame (see 6.4.1) this is the classic sequencing question: the safety net first, the opening after.

3.2 Review clause and a public register of proposals for the elements invoking the crisis (in every accelerated act)

Through a regulatory window opened in a crisis, it is usually those who have a ready proposal who go in. This is not a supposition but the well-documented mechanism of regulatory capture — the appropriation of the regulator by an interest group. MIAK proposes that every market-structure element adopted in an accelerated procedure invoking the crisis situation should receive two supplements. The first is a mandatory review clause: after eighteen months the rule automatically falls under review, and the legislator has to confirm it at a time when the crisis situation no longer justifies it. The second is a public register of proposals: every interest-representation proposal received during the preparation of the act, and the answer given to it, should be published before entry into force — not in order to stigmatise the proposer, but so that it should be visible afterwards where each passage of text came from. Neither step slows legislation down: the clause is a single paragraph, and the register is the publication of documents already received. The proposal is the direct application of the G6 programme point against rent-seeking and regulatory capture and of the A4 lobby register, and follows the logic of the G20 impact assessment system. Rose-Ackerman’s analysis (see 6.4.2) shows precisely that narrowing discretion and the transparency of the procedure are more effective protection than an ex post sanction.

3.3 A voluntary time-based tariff for households with a smart meter — compulsory extension only after a measured effect (by the first half of 2027)

Time-based pricing is economically justified: if the wholesale price is zero during the day and several hundred euros at night, then a uniform tariff means that the household consuming by day pays for the evening peak. The trouble is the manner of introduction. Today the smart meter is present in 11 per cent of households, and the possibility of shifting consumption in time is very unevenly distributed: whoever works from home can move the washing to noon, whoever works shifts or is raising a small child cannot. MIAK therefore proposes that by the first half of 2027 the time-based tariff should be available in an optional form to every household with a smart meter, and that the service provider should be obliged, at the point of switching, to give information on how much better or worse the given household is likely to fare given its consumption profile. A decision on compulsory extension may be taken only after measured data are available from the voluntary phase on which consumer groups fare well and which do not. The voluntary phase is thus not a delay but the way of carrying out the impact assessment. The proposal is a task for the KI5 behavioural public policy unit and the D9 data-driven decision support, and connects to the G25 energy price shock preparedness plan.

The three proposals can be strung on a single principle: the crisis is a good reason for deciding, but a bad reason for cutting corners. A market-structure reform fixes for decades who pays what price and who collects what rent — and precisely for that reason the few weeks required by stating the sequence, writing in the review clause and measuring the voluntary phase are not taken away from crisis management but give the durability of the reform. Stiglitz’s argument (see 6.4.1) adds that sequencing errors are not milder variants of the correct reform but failures in their own right: a good step carried out in the wrong sequence takes away the credit of the reform as a whole.

Part IV — Expected effects and risks

Dimension Expected effect Risk
Economy The optional character of time-based pricing exploits the largest free reserve: the shifting of consumption out of the evening peak If market opening precedes the build-up of flexibility capacity, the evening price swing reaches the consumer without being avoidable
Society The optional tariff and the prior information protect those who cannot reorganise their day Tariff choice places an informational burden on the consumer; the least informed households remain in the most expensive package
Foreign policy Making the contractual structure of imports public strengthens the regional negotiating position A significant part of imports arrives from Ukraine, where delivery is exposed to war risk

The main question to be weighed lies between the price signal and protection. A uniform tariff is fair in the sense that it punishes nobody for their daily schedule — and wasteful in the sense that it incentivises nobody either. The time-based tariff is the reverse: it incentivises, but it measures freedom over one’s daily schedule in money, and that freedom is very unevenly distributed. MIAK therefore proposes not that we choose between the two, but that the voluntary phase of the transition should serve as measurement: the data accumulating over a year will tell for which consumer group the price signal works and for which it only causes cost. This difference between introducing the price signal and measuring the price signal is the one thing that will make the reform defensible later.

The proposal tips over to the risk side if the structure of import exposure is disregarded. The evening shortfall is at present covered by imports, and a significant part of that arrives from Ukraine: in the last week of July Kyiv gave the second largest quantity in the region after Poland, with 61 gigawatt hours of net exports, while operating with an export limit of at most 900 megawatts and being at war. Artur Lorkowski, head of the Energy Community, an EU energy policy coordination organisation, warned of precisely this: “if you have a contract and the line is bombed, then you have a problem.” A market-opening package that puts the domestic price signal in order but does not assess the contractual exposure of imports leaves the most important uncertainty untouched.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth tracking? (proposed KPIs)

Four performance indicators (KPIs) are worth tracking over the coming eighteen months:

  1. Smart meter penetration: the share of households equipped with a smart meter — proposed target: a growth path published half-yearly starting from the present 11 per cent level, because without this a time-based tariff cannot be chosen.
  2. The number of households choosing a time-based tariff and their saving: proposed target: a public evaluation broken down by consumer group in the twelve months following introduction, before any compulsory extension.
  3. The intraday wholesale price range: the difference between the highest and lowest hourly price of the day per megawatt hour, in annual average — proposed target: a declining path, because a narrowing range signals the build-up of flexibility capacity.
  4. The number and review status of market-structure rules adopted in an accelerated procedure invoking the crisis: proposed target: every such rule should have a public review deadline, and after the eighteen-month deadline none should remain in force without review.

5.2 Summary

MIAK’s key message in a single sentence: the reshaping of the Hungarian electricity market is justified, but the crisis gives no authorisation to skip the sequence — and if wholesale opening ends up in one package with household price protection, then both halves of the reform will fail. Concretely, it asks the government to state, at the adoption of the legislative programme, that the two subject matters will be dealt with in separate laws and on separate schedules, to write an eighteen-month review clause into every accelerated market-structure element invoking the crisis and publish the interest-representation proposals received during preparation, and finally to introduce the time-based tariff by the first half of 2027 in an optional form with prior individual information. And it asks the public not to ask, in the coming months, the question “is liberalisation good or bad”, but rather which step comes when and with what safety net.

Two MIAK foundational values are in play in this matter. Non-ideological analysis, because in Hungary market opening has for two decades been a slogan of camps: on one side a value in itself, on the other a threat in itself — while the professional truth is that the same step either works or destroys depending on the sequence, and this question can be asked only from outside the camps. And accountability, because it is the peculiarity of a rule adopted in a crisis that the extraordinary reason passes while the text remains: the review clause and the register of proposals are the two instruments that preserve the possibility of the later question — who proposed it, what justified it, and is it still valid.

Part VI — Justifications and further sources

6.1 The press framing by spectrum

The Brussels policy band was the only one that treated the Hungarian crisis as a market-structure news item. Euractiv sharpened the piece not towards the plant but towards prices and tariff structure: through a named expert and an anonymous Hungarian diplomat it had it stated that the present price system does not incentivise a reduction of night-time consumption, and it recorded the Hungarian singularity — Hungary is the only EU country where households pay significantly less for electricity than industry — not as a political accusation but as a structural fact. The same paper also made public the cost estimate of imports and the order of magnitude of Ukrainian supply. In the Hungarian press this framing did not appear on this day.

The regional band documented the parallelism. Two pieces by Balkan Insight gave the most important supplement of the day: the Serbian report states that the historic low of the Danube has held back the generation of the Đerdap hydropower plants and is obstructing river fuel imports, while the Romanian piece states that Bucharest has taken more than eighty energy-intensive large companies into output reduction. This band did not evaluate but described — and precisely for that reason it was usable: the regional embeddedness of the Hungarian situation is visible from here, not from the domestic reporting.

The Central European analytical band looked at the political consequences. Visegrad Insight’s energy security pieces approach the summer’s energy policy debates from the direction of voter behaviour and the EU bargaining process, claiming that energy prices carry political risk — this framing is relevant, but the paper’s processed pieces relate to a period earlier than the present Hungarian situation, and therefore appear here as background, not as fresh fact. One framing was missing from every band: not a single paper asked in what sequence and with what procedural safeguards a market-structure reform may be adopted in a crisis situation — everywhere the text was about either the necessity of the reform or the handling of the crisis.

6.2 Facts and data

Datum Value Source
The historic low of the Danube, the start of the Paks output reduction 29 July 2026 Euractiv, 6 August 2026
Domestic electricity generating capacity lost almost half of total capacity Euractiv, 6 August 2026
Wholesale price at noon 0 euro/MWh Euractiv, 6 August 2026
Wholesale price at night (towards the peak) towards 500 euro/MWh Euractiv, 6 August 2026
Night-time wholesale price on Thursday above 300 euro/MWh Euractiv, 6 August 2026
Share of households equipped with a smart meter 11% Euractiv, 6 August 2026
Hungary’s EU singularity the only EU country where households pay significantly less for electricity than industry Euractiv, 6 August 2026
Estimated cost of evening imports 275–550 million euros estimate of government officials, Euractiv, 6 August 2026
Ukraine’s net electricity exports to the region (last week of July) 61 GWh — the second largest after Poland Euractiv, 6 August 2026
Ukraine’s export limit at most 900 MW Euractiv, 6 August 2026
Romanian national energy alert from 31 July 2026 for the whole of August Balkan Insight, 4 August 2026
Romanian large companies taken into output reduction more than 80 Balkan Insight, 4 August 2026
Voluntary consumption reduction by Dacia and Ford approx. 200 MW, until 19 August Balkan Insight, 4 August 2026
Share of the Cernavodă nuclear plant in Romanian electricity generation approx. one fifth Balkan Insight, 4 August 2026
The period of the Romanian evening shortfall between 7 and 11 p.m. statement of Ilie Bolojan, Balkan Insight, 4 August 2026

A single connection deserves to be highlighted. The intraday price range running from zero to 500 euros and the 11 per cent smart meter penetration together mean that the Hungarian system today cannot access its largest available reserve. Shifting consumption in time is free: it requires no power plant, storage or line, only a price signal and a meter. In the present weeks this reserve has moved only upon request — in the form of voluntary abstention — which works for a short while but is not an institution. Tariff reform is therefore not a side thread of electricity market opening but the least costly element of crisis management; the only question is with what safety net and in what sequence it is introduced.

6.3 Policy dimensions

  • Economy (programme points) — competition policy, protection against regulatory capture and the impact assessment system together give the procedural frame of market opening (programme point ID: G5, G6, G20, G19, G25);
  • Environment and climate (programme points) — the energy transition plan and shock resilience give the target values of flexibility capacity to which market opening has to be scheduled (programme point ID: K2, K7);
  • Foreign policy (programme points) — regional resilience building is a question of the contractual structure of evening imports, not a declaration of solidarity (programme point ID: KP10);
  • Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points) — the lobby register is the direct antidote to the capture risk of legislation invoking the crisis (programme point ID: A4);
  • Public administration and e-government (programme points) — measuring the consumer effect of the tariff change is a behavioural public policy task (programme point ID: KI5);
  • Digitalisation and AI regulation (programme points) — the machine-readable publication of smart meter data and intraday prices (programme point ID: D9, D2).

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 Joseph E. Stiglitz: Globalization and Its Discontents

The most frequently misunderstood claim of Stiglitz’s volume is that he does not argue against market opening but for the sequence of implementation. The author recurrently records that successful economic programmes “require particular care in sequencing — the order in which reforms occur — and pacing”, and brings as an example precisely the situation in which markets are opened too fast to competition, before the necessary institutions have been built up. His summary is the sharpest:

“Of all the IMF’s blunders, it is the mistakes in sequencing and pacing, and the failure to be sensitive to the broader social context, that have received the most attention — forcing liberalization before safety nets were put in place, before there was an adequate regulatory framework.”

The author adds that sequencing errors are not theoretical subtleties: through the example of the dismantling of African marketing boards he shows that the withdrawal of a market participant without competition and access to credit produced not competition but local monopolies — that is, a step in the right direction in the wrong sequence produced the opposite result.

For the Hungarian situation this is directly applicable at two points. The first is the question of the safety net: if the reshaping of household price regulation precedes the build-up of smart meters and the availability of the time-based tariff, then the household receives the price swing without having any instrument to respond to it. The second is regulatory capacity: operating the intraday and flexibility markets requires serious regulatory and system operation preparedness, and this preparedness has to be assessed before the opening, not during it. Proposal 3.1 — the two subject matters in separate laws, with a published schedule — is exactly the Hungarian equivalent of Stiglitz’s sequencing requirement.

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

6.4.2 Susan Rose-Ackerman: Corruption and Government

The starting point of Rose-Ackerman’s volume is that the possibility of abuse depends not on people’s character but on the structure of the decision situation. The author systematises the typical state situations in which the risk is greatest: when the state distributes a scarce, valuable benefit; when the quantity of the benefit depends on the decision-maker; and when the eligibility rules are uncertain. One of the most precise summary sentences of her analysis:

“The greater the discretion of officials and the fewer the options open to private firms and individuals, the higher the cost of a system that tolerates corruption.”

The author deals separately with regulatory programmes: by her finding, wherever regulatory authorities have discretion, the incentive to pay for a favourable interpretation of the rules is always present — and uncertain, immature eligibility rules are themselves instruments of abuse, because unfair treatment is hard to prove afterwards.

In the case of the Hungarian market-opening package this is not a suspicion of corruption but a structural warning. A market-structure reform does exactly what the author identifies as the most risky situation: it distributes scarce and valuable positions — market entry entitlements, flexibility service contracts, network connection order — and does so in an accelerated procedure, with little public debate. MIAK derives from this not a postponement of the reform but the narrowing of discretion: the review clause of proposal 3.2 limits in time, and the public register of proposals limits in procedure, the space in which the fate of the scarce benefit is decided. By the author’s own logic this is the more effective route: changing the structure prevents abuse, while an ex post sanction only signals it.

📖 Source: Susan Rose-Ackerman: Corruption and Government — Causes, Consequences, and Reform

6.5 International comparison

The three systems of the region have given three different answers to the same physical shock, and the difference is instructive. Romania chose the official-coordination route: on 31 July it declared a national energy alert for the whole of August, and took more than eighty energy-intensive large companies into maintenance or output reduction — Dacia and Ford stopped until 19 August, voluntarily by some 200 megawatts, while Kronospan cut its consumption by as much as half. Acting Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan spoke openly of a regional energy crisis, and named the affected time band: between 7 and 11 p.m. the shortfall is significant and is covered by imports. Serbia went the system operator route: the generation of the Đerdap hydropower plants fell back, but according to the head of the electricity company supply will remain stable, because the system was prepared for this situation; there the substantive risk is the obstruction of river fuel imports. In Hungary both instruments appeared — voluntary commitments and imports — but on this day a third also emerged, one more durable than the other two: the possibility of market-structure reform.

The Hungarian situation is special in that the direction of the reform and the direction of the crisis coincide. In Romania and Serbia the answers are of an operational character, and will therefore revert once the crisis passes; in the Hungarian case, by contrast, the reshaping of the tariff structure is lasting, and this is at once the greatest opportunity and the greatest risk. From the regional parallelism a single common conclusion follows for all three countries: since the shortfall arises in the same few evening hours and from the same physical cause in every Danube system, the upper limit of an import-based response is regionally interconnected. A pre-prepared reserve agreement extending to several countries — on Hungarian initiative, within the frame of KP10 regional resilience building — is therefore not an alternative to market opening but the frame within which the numbers of market opening make sense.

Economy

  • G5 — Competition policy and anti-monopoly
  • G6 — Programme against rent-seeking and regulatory capture
  • G20 — Economic policy impact assessment system (Drucker audit)
  • G19 — Radical transparency in economic decision-making
  • G25 — Energy price shock preparedness plan

Environment and climate

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

Foreign policy

  • KP10 — Regional resilience building

Transparency and anti-corruption policy

  • A4 — Lobby register

Public administration and e-government

  • KI5 — Behavioural public policy unit (Nudge Unit)

Digitalisation and AI regulation

  • D9 — Data-driven public policy decision support system
  • D2 — Open data programme

Proposed new programme point: Review clause and public register of proposals for market-structure rules adopted in an accelerated procedure invoking a crisis situation — for the Economy area, as a procedural supplement to the G6 programme against regulatory capture.

6.7 List of sources

Press sources (MIAK foreign press monitor, 6 August 2026 — topic 1):

Knowledge-base references (books):

  • 📖 Joseph E. Stiglitz: Globalization and Its Discontents
  • 📖 Susan Rose-Ackerman: Corruption and Government — Causes, Consequences, and Reform

Note: the local file path of the books does NOT appear in the visible text of the blog — only the author and the title. The file path is an internal matter of the generation process, not the reader’s.

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Economy (programme points; programme point ID: G5, G6, G20, G25)
  • MIAK policy area: Environment and climate (programme points; programme point ID: K2, K7)
  • MIAK policy area: Foreign policy (programme points; programme point ID: KP10)
  • MIAK policy area: Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points; programme point ID: A4)
  • MIAK foreign press monitor, 6 August 2026 — topic 1, score: 100/100

Additional public data sources:

  • ENTSO-E Transparency Platform — cross-border flows and outages
  • MAVIR — daily system load and cross-border capacity data
  • Hungarian Energy and Public Utility Regulatory Authority — electricity market reports
  • Eurostat — household and industrial electricity prices, energy intensity time series

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