The Role of Regional Policy and Its Institutional System in Hungary

Abstract

Regionalism comes to the front in nowadays as one of the possible ways of public administration and development policy. However, while public administration organised on spatial base has a millenary past, regional development policy as a category emerged only in the last decades. This tendency has strengthened through Hungary's accession to the European Union, as our membership also goes with the admittance to the funds of the EU regional policy.

One aim of the study is to present with a comprehensive train of troughs the necessity of the regional development from the side of economy and public task taking from the following three points of view: analyses the theoretical considerations, the international experience and the Hungarian regional economic and institutional process. The study contains the examination of the regional institutional system based on its legal environment, relation to policy, orientation and disposable sources.

Based on the results of the analyses we attempt to answer the possibilities of the improvement of regional policy in Hungary. In our deductions we take a stand on further fiscal and political decentralisation and suggest some practical steps for its achievement. Decentralisation is a more effective alternative than central compensatory measures.