Most recent forint weakening is entirely due to external factors

HUNGARY - In Brief 02 Sep 2026 by Istvan Racz

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The forint's weakening against EUR and USD, seen so far this week, does not really point in the direction of another base rate cut in September. But it is important to know that it can be traced back entirely to external factors, such as Russia/Ukraine, the Middle East, global energy prices and also global bond markets. Here is a brief summary of the most recent events of Hungary:- At 15:33 BUD time on August 31, the last required document proving Hungary's compliance with RRF conditions was sent out to the EU Commission. Minister Vitézy, the government's coordinator of the project has reported Hungary's compliance level at 100%. Although a detailed evaluation is still to follow on the Commission's side, Mr. Vitézy claims that the whole compliance process was directly and continuously reconciled between the government and the EU, meaning daily contact. So, essentially full compliance and the resulting full transfer of the €10bn RRF quota can be taken for granted, except the unlikely but possible case of technical mistakes here and there. No further decision is required on the EU's side, checking compliance documents and the underlying facts is technical. Once the Commission has covered the checking of a particular program area with a positive result, the related funds are getting transferred without delay.- On August 31, those public interest trusts (according to Mr. Vitézy, it would have been more appropriate to call these 'private interest trusts managing public money') which are not related to universities were terminated. This implied the transfer of ownership of HUF1284bn (1.4% of GDP) worth of originally publicly owned assets (cash, securities, property) directly...