Country data: Hungary

All comparisons are with the figures for 10 December 2020, the previous reporting date.

The last 2 years, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Member State authorities to address pressing priorities and affected their performance in transposing EU rules to some degree. In this context, the Commission has taken a number of extraordinary measures aimed at relieving the strain on Member States’ administrative resources. Nevertheless, it has also made clear that the Member States’ legal obligations to transpose EU directives in time remain unchanged.

 

Transposition deficit (percentage of all directives not transposed): 0.7% (last report: 1%) – a decrease of 0.3 percentage points. Together with Germany, Hungary is the only Member State that met the 1% target set by the European Council and managed to reduce its deficit further in the reporting period.
EU average = 1.6%; proposed target (in the Single Market Act) = 0.5%

For 10 years, Hungary has been performing consistently well on this criterion. It only exceeded the 1% threshold in 2016, when the Member States had to transpose an unusually large number of directives. Last year, probably because of the constraints imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Hungary was close to losing control of the situation, but has now reversed the downward trend. It did not transpose 23% of the single market directives (6 out of 26) due to have been transposed in the 6 months before the cut-off date for calculating the deficit (1 June to 30 November 2021). This shows that Hungary could organise the timely transposition of directives even better, although the number of overdue directives and their length of delay (see below) in this Member State are moderate.

Overdue directives: 7 (last report: 10), including 3 on transport. No directive is more than 2 years overdue.

Average delay in transposing directives: 4.8 months (last report: 9.4 months) – a marked decrease of 4.6 months (the second highest decrease among all Member States).
EU average = 8.6 months

After a spike in the length of delay 2 years ago and a 78% subsequent decrease (from 21.7 months in December 2019 to 4.8 months this year), Hungary is one of the top five Member States with the shortest delays in transposing directives. Hungary managed to transpose one long-overdue directive (due for 2 years or more). Most of its outstanding directives (6/7) have been due for less than 6 months.

Conformity deficit (percentage of all directives transposed incorrectly): 1.8% (last report: 1.6%) – an increase of 0.2 percentage points. This is Hungary’s highest deficit ever.
EU average = 1.3%; proposed target (in the Single Market Act) = 0.5%

The number of new infringement proceedings that the Commission has launched against Member States for incorrectly transposing single market directives has more than halved in 2 years. Nevertheless, the number of ongoing cases is still high. With 18 directives presumed to have been incorrectly transposed, Hungary is among the Member States with the highest average deficit.

Evolution of transposition deficit

 

Evolution of conformity deficit

 

All comparisons are with the figures for 1 December 2020, the previous reporting date.

 

Pending single market cases: 30 (9 new cases and 11 cases closed, including 3 on transport; last report: 32 pending cases) – a further decrease (of 2 cases), but now above the EU average number of cases.
EU average = 27 cases

In the previous reporting period, Hungary managed to curb the upward trend in the number of infringement cases launched against it. It continued in the same vein in the current reporting period.

The Commission launched 120 new cases against Member States in the reporting period (besides those for late transposition), and these were still pending on 1 December 2021. A total of 9  cases (the second highest number among Member States) were launched against Hungary, which is at more than doubles the EU average of 4 new cases launched in the reporting period. However, 11 Hungarian cases have been resolved since December 2020, which is better than the EU average (8).

Problematic sectors: the environment (8 cases), including 3 on atmospheric pollution; transport (4 cases). Together, these make up 40% of all pending cases.

Average case duration: 40.6 months for the 26 single market cases not yet sent to the European Court of Justice (last report: 45.3 months) – a decrease of 4.7 months. The duration of cases is now shorter than the EU average.         
EU average = 42.8 months

Hungary’s average duration of cases has increased by 29% in the last 3 years. However, Hungary is the only Member State (with Greece) whose case duration decreased since December 2020. It recently resolved 8 cases with an average duration of more than 3 years (including a 16-year-old case on air transport). Out of the 26 remaining cases, 9 cases have been running for more than 5 years (with a 10-year-old case on air transport and a 8-year-old case on waste management). Their duration is offset by the launch of a proportionately high number (9) of new cases (whose average duration is less than 12 months).

Time taken to comply with Court rulings: 19.4 months for the five single market cases at the Court-ruling stage of the procedure and closed in the last 5 years (last report: 23.54 months).
EU average = 46.8 months

Hungary is one of four Member States whose average time to comply decreased in the reporting period, although to a moderate extent (-4 months). This slight decrease is because one case that took more than 2 years for compliance and which is now more than 5 years old is no longer part of the calculation. In addition, 3 new cases needed a moderate time lag for compliance (between 6 months and 2.5 years).

Evolution of infringement cases

Performance – Hungary continued to perform very well.

• Hungary’s performance remained stable or improved for all indicators.
• Results for four indicators were above the EEA average.
• The percentage of requests accepted within 1 week was the best performance in the EEA.

• Caseload – large
  Submitted cases: 212 (258 in 2020)
  Received cases: 31 (34 in 2020)

• Cases not accepted: 89 (133 in 2020)

• Resolution rate: 94% (91% in 2020)
• Handling time (as home centre)
  Reply in 7 days: 94% (96% in 2020) – very good
  Cases prepared in 30 days: 96% (97% in 2020) – very good
  Solutions accepted within 7 days: 94% (95% in 2020 ) – very  good

• Cases not accepted within 30 days: 75% (71% in 2020) - good

• Handling time (as lead centre)
  Cases accepted within 7 days:  94% (94% in 2020) – good
  Cases closed in 10 weeks:  87% (79% in 2020) – good
• Staffing level
  Sufficient

In 2022, the average payment delay (the time exceeding the legal or agreed payment terms) by Hungarian public authorities was 14 days.

The average number of days needed for a business to have its invoices paid by other businesses (business-to-business payments) was 52.63 days.

Indicator	2021	EU average
Burden of government regulation (survey replies: 1 = worst, 7 = best)	3.3	3.6
Digital public services to start and run a business (100% = best performing)	73.8%	n/a
Payment delays by public authorities	14 days	15.7 days
Time to resolve insolvency	2.0 years	2.0 years
Impact of regulation on long-term investment decisions (survey replies)	27.8%	n/a

Indicator	2021	EU average
Single bidder	40%	25%
No calls for bids	5%	6%
Publication rate (value advertised on Tenders Electronic Daily, in % of GDP)	9.0%	5.9%
Cooperative procurement (proportion of procedures with more than one buyer)	11%	5%
Award criteria (proportion of procedures awarded to cheapest bid)	50%	64%
Decision speed (days)	110	99
SME contractors	75%	61%
SME bids	74%	73%
Procedures divided into lots	37%	31%
Missing calls for bids	0%	1%
Missing seller registration numbers	17%	29%
Missing buyer registration numbers	0%	11%

Note: A typical (mid-ranking) EU country is used for the EU average for all indicators except the publication rate. Due to delays in data availability, publication rate results are based on 2020 data.

Indicator	2021	EU average
Restrictiveness indicator – architect	2.1	2.5
Restrictiveness indicator – accountant	1.2	1.7
Restrictiveness indicator – civil engineer	2.3	2.4
Restrictiveness indicator – lawyer	3.3	3.4
Restrictiveness indicator – real estate agent	1.2	1.3
Restrictiveness indicator – patent agent	3.6	2.2
Restrictiveness indicator – tourist guide	1.8	1.2
Domestic priority letter prices, letter 20 g (2020)	€ 0.53	€ 0.88
Intra-EU priority letter prices, letter 20 g (2020)	€ 1.85	€ 1.53
Domestic transit times, day+1 performance, priority letters 20 g (2020)	90.0%	84.2%

Note: The EU restrictiveness indicator (EURI) measures the level of restrictiveness for the cross-border provision of services and the right of establishment for seven groups of professional services with a high share in EU firms’ intermediate consumption or cross-border mobility. The level of restrictiveness is measured on a scale from 0 (least restrictive) to 6 (most restrictive). 

Indicator	2021	EU average
Access to public financial support (% of SMEs indicating deterioration)	12.2%	11.3%
Time to get paid by businesses (2022 survey)	52.6 days	52.5 days
Venture capital investments (% of GDP)	0.15%	0.48%