The Hungarian Village Programme was started by the Orbán administration in 2023. Since then, it has given out grants to 35,000 applicants to the tune of hundreds of billions of Forints. The programme’s aim is to renovate the buildings and infrastructure of rural Hungary.

On Friday, 4 July, the Ministry for National Economy of Hungary announced that the Village Programme will grant special funding to towns of 5,000 people or fewer.

The Ministry wrote in a public statement that the national government of Hungary is committed to supporting villages because it believes that they should be built up, not torn down. To this end, it has supported the construction and renovation of roads connecting villages, inland streets, kindergartens, schools, medical clinics, and service buildings, among other projects, for many years. This year, for the first time, it is also supporting the operation of small grocery stores, the maintenance of pubs, and the renovation of churches, and is working to ensure that all villages have unhindered access to cash, ie, that there is an ATM in every village.

They went on to write that, as a next step to reduce development disparities between some areas of Hungary and to preserve the population of small villages, the government decided that, under the Hungarian Village Programme, it will provide state-owned unused real estate free of charge to settlements with a population of 5,000 and below, such as non-operational small village post offices, former savings bank branch properties, as well as apartments, residential houses, and properties suitable for housing. These properties, either directly or through their use or sale, can contribute to the development of small villages in difficulty, in line with local needs, and thus to their population retention.

The government has made free ownership possible for more than 800 properties, and hundreds of municipalities can take advantage of this opportunity.

Related articles: