Outline of the Evolution of the Hungarian Monetary Policy from the Restoration of the Two-level Banking System to the Present Day

This study outlines the development of Hungary’s monetary policy, and the course and changes in its objectives and instruments since the beginning of the market economy transition in the late 1980s. The author’s basic thesis is that the period since the two-level banking system was reinstated after four decades of a planned economy system, in 1987, can be basically divided into three development phases with significantly different characteristics. The first phase was an ‘attempt to introduce’ an imported monetary mechanism, or perhaps an urge to comply with it, while the second phase was an approach of a monetary regime change launched in 2013 and supporting economic growth and financial stability strongly and directly, which lasted until the appearance of the traumatic elements of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. The third phase is evolving today, under the circumstances of adapting to the conditions of the real essence of the twenty-first century, i.e. a new type of international competitiveness, which is pursued by the Central Bank of Hungary as stipulated by the Fundamental Law and the cardinal Central Bank Act of Hungary.

Administrative Law in the Time of Corona(virus)

The Hungarian administrative law has been significantly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Several rules – which were introduced during the state of danger based on the epidemic situation – have been incorporated into the Hungarian legal system. The administrative procedural law has been influenced by the epidemic transformation. However, the rules on e-administration have not been reformed significantly (due to the digitalisation reforms of the last years), but the rules on administrative licenses and permissions have been amended. The priority of the general code on administrative procedure has been weakened: new, simplified procedure and regime have been introduced. The local self-governance has been impacted by the reforms. The transformation has had two, opposite trends. On the one hand, the Hungarian administrative system became more centralised during the last year: municipal revenues and task performance have been partly centralised. The Hungarian municipal system has been concentrated, as well. The role of the second-tier government, the counties (megye), has been strengthened by the establishment of the special economic (investment) zones. On the other hand, the municipalities could be interpreted as a ‘trash can’ of the Hungarian public administration: they received new, mainly unpopular competences on the restrictions related to the pandemic. Although these changes have been related to the current epidemic situation, it seems, that the ‘legislative background’ of the pandemic offered an opportunity to the central government to pass significant reforms. From 2021 a new phenomenon can be observed: the state of danger has remained, but the majority of the restrictions have been terminated by the Government of Hungary. Therefore, the justification of the state of danger during the summer of 2021 became controversial in Hungarian public discourse.

The Rule of Law and the Extraordinary Situation

The various legal theorists dealing with the operation and effect of law have mostly examined situations that can be described as occurring in the usual, regular, normal state of social life. Over the last half century, and particularly since the formation and later enlargement of the European Union, the requirement of the rule of law has emerged as a key topic. The test of the rule of law is as follows: it is necessary to examine in an abnormal situation or, as it were, in an extraordinary situation exactly how it is possible to take political decisions that are of fundamental importance to society while also guaranteeing that these decisions remain within the rule of law at all times.The aim of this study is to investigate how and by what constitutional mandate the Hungarian Government deviated from the normal constitutional situation in 2020. The “state of exception” theorised by Carl Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben means the suspension of the law. It is important to understand their views in order to see that the Hungarian situation in 2020 is utterly dissimilar to such a state of exception. In short, we need to distinguish a state of exception from an extraordinary situation, because the latter does not imply the suspension of law in general or, more specifically, the suspension of the rule of law, but that parliamentary and government decisions remain within it. The special legal order applied in an extraordinary situation is not in fact a suspension of democracy, still less of the rule of law. On the contrary, it actually falls within both: in a state of national crisis, this situation is democracy itself and the rule of law itself, and – accordingly – strict laws (both democratic and imposed within the rule of law), or rather laws of cardinal importance, make its conditions and its functioning possible and regulate it.

Re-thinking the Lower-middle Level of Administration in Hungary with Particular Reference to the Web 3.0. Era

This paper will evaluate the current situation and role of the Hungarian (administrative) lower-middle level and make projections about its future. Centralisation efforts since 2010 have had a non-negligible impact on the administrative and non-administrative (common institution maintenance, micro-regional development policy) tasks assigned to the lower-middle level. However, it may be argued that the transition to the Web 3.0 era – the era of the most advanced, most intelligent and customised web technologies – may put such centralisation efforts into a new context. Revitalisation of formations similar to the multi-functional micro-regional associations of local self-governments which largely disappeared after 1 January 2013 may be justifiable in the forthcoming period in order to promote local synergies. If this is correct, a rethink of the public administration system at the lower-middle level may become a very important task for the public administration as along with regional discourse.

A Covid Competition Dilemma: Legal and Ethical Challenges Regarding the Covid-19 Vaccine Policies during and after the Crisis

The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted multiple facets of our lives and created a number of legal and ethical dilemmas. One of the greatest challenges at present is the production and distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine. Refusing to supply Covid vaccines widely could affect millions worldwide, and the pandemic may last for a long time. The competition authorities’ monitoring of the health sector in many countries has been subject to changes in thecurrent crisis. The question is whether we can force the Covid-19 vaccine manufacturers, legally and ethically, to sell their products and share their information with their competitors. Furthermore, what are the post-pandemic consequences of policies adopted during the pandemic? This paper employs a descriptive-analytical method to examine the importance of competition and intellectual property policies as they relate to Covid-19. It concludes that instead of focusing on individual rights in a crisis, public rights need to be emphasised. However, we should not underestimate the post-pandemic consequences of policies adopted during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Coronavirus Test of the European Union’s Policy on the Rule of Law

The issue of the rule of law has been on the European Union’s (EU) agenda since the beginning of the 2010s. The legal history of the EU shows that the EU’s approach to the topic of the rule of law underwent significant changes. Initially, the Member States called for guarantees of fundamental rights in EU institutions. This trend began to change in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the possibility of European rule of law control over Member States and the predecessor of the current Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) were introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam. However, the idea that the EU institutions can constantly monitor the Member States in the name of the rule of law has only emerged and started dominating the European political agenda since the early 2010s. Over the last decade, the EU institutions have continuously expanded their toolkit for monitoring Member States in this regard.Following calls from some Member States and the European Parliament, in 2014 the Commission set up the new EU framework to strengthen the rule of law. In the same year, the European Council introduced an annual rule of law dialogue. In 2016, the European Parliament proposed the establishment of an annual rule of law report that monitors all Member States. At first, the European Commission was reluctant to accept this idea, but finally it introduced an annual rule of law report in 2020. However, the EU’s policy on the rule of law suffers from fundamental shortcomings, which were especially visible during the first wave of the coronavirus crisis in the spring of 2020. In the pandemic situation, it has become even more apparent that the EU’s policy on the rule of law raises a significant issue of EU institutions exceeding their competences and stands on a questionable legal basis.Criticisms formulated against Hungary during the pandemic have revealed that the EU institutions do not provide sufficient guarantees for an objective examination of the situation of the rule of law in the Member States. The situation brought about by the coronavirus has also raised a number of questions regarding the lawful functioning of EU institutions, which shows the need for a rule of law mechanism capable of verifying that the EU institutions themselves also properly respect the rule of law.

The Biopolitical Turn of the Post-Covid World

As the 21st century became shaped by the matters of public health, the Covid-19 pandemic revealed that it is a trap to believe that we have to choose between the medicalisation of politics and the politicisation of medicine. My thesis is that models of good governance in the post-pandemic world must be shaped by leftist principles, values and practices, in order to ensure not the reopening, but the reconstruction of public life, which needs more than ever overcoming social inequalities and political polarisations, whereas liberal principles should be implemented in order to fix standards of economic performance and efficiency after applying mechanism of recovery. Governments as well as electoral spheres are reticent to biopolitical incursions, historically associated with panoptic systems. I claim that it is time to plead for positivising biopolitics as political humanism. My research will expose twelve themes for disseminating biopolitics as political humanism, focused on sensitive key-domains such as labour, social cohesion, security, infodemia, domestic life and good governance.

Israel Facing COVID-19

This paper considers Israel’s response to the challenges raised by the Covid-19 pandemic with a specific focus on the invoked public policies and the related political, economic and legal concerns. I first provide some background information. Then, I outline the keys for the initial success in confronting the coronavirus pandemic. Three factors contributed to the initial Israeli success, namely: the government’s swift and effective reaction to the pandemic; the close cooperation and coordination between the organisations that were mobilised to counter the pandemic, and the effective implementation of governmental policies. However, mistakes were made during the second wave of the pandemic.

Governments’ Measures to Govern the Coronavirus Crisis and the Lessons Learned

Since its appearance in late 2019 in China, the Coronavirus pandemic has posed a real challenge to humanity and governments. No country was safe from the effects of the virus, whether from a medical, economic, or social point of view. In the absence of international coordination, countries began to rely on their own capabilities to curb the pandemic and mitigate its negative effects. To achieve these goals, different strategies and measures have been adopted. Despite the challenges governments faced, these measures definitely helped alleviate the severity of the epidemic and slowed its spread. These measures include, but are not limited to, lockdown, border restrictions, home quarantine, the imposition of wearing masks and social distancing. This crisis stresses the importance of a country’s financial, technical and human capabilities in governing crises. Moreover, it revealed that the absence of international cooperation in managing international crises has dire consequences for the international community.