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Hungary Role of Party and Government Bodies
As of mid-1989, the HSWP was the dominant political
institution in the government and the ultimate authority
on all
political, economic, and social issues
(see Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party
, ch. 4). The party's leading organs passed
resolutions that functioned as basic guidelines for
government
bodies making economic decisions, and party leaders also
exercised formidable informal influence. Primary authority
lay
with the Politburo and the Secretariat (particularly the
latter's
committee for economic and social welfare policy, the
working
group for economics, and the department for economic and
social
welfare policy). In the 1980s, the party assumed a lower
profile
in economic decision making than it had before the reform,
and it
consulted more with ministers, enterprises, and other
government
and economic organizations.
The Council of Ministers was the government's highest
administrative decision-making body. Its State Planning
Committee
concerned itself with long-term economic issues. The
council's
Economic Committee oversaw the economy's day-to-day
operation
(see State Apparatus
, ch. 4).
The government consolidated the ministerial structure
in the
late 1970s and 1980s in order to reduce the ministries'
influence
on managers of enterprises. In 1989 four branch
ministries--
industry, agriculture and food, construction, and
communications-
-set policy, assisted in allocating resources (especially
investments), promoted development, and ensured
achievement of
export targets. Hungary's functional ministries were the
Ministry
of Finance and the Ministry of Trade. The Ministry of
Finance
supervised the banking system and worked out many of the
economic
regulators that guided the economy. The Ministry of Trade
developed and implemented foreign and domestic trade
policy,
granted export and import licenses and certain subsidies,
and
controlled the balance of payments.
The National Planning Authority and the National Price
Office
acted much like functional ministries. As with traditional
centrally planned economies, the National Planning
Authority was
one of the most powerful economic organs in the
government. It
participated in almost all of the central government's
economic
decision making, and its chairman presided over the State
Planning Committee. After the NEM was instituted, however,
the
planning authority has focused primarily on medium- and
long-term
planning. Prices were supposed to reflect "justified"
costs, and
enterprises had to report price increases to the National
Price
Office, which could intervene formally or informally if it
deemed
a price increase unjustified. With the Council of
Ministers'
approval, the National Price Office could issue
administrative
commands to enterprises in case of actual or possible
economic
disruptions. However, the National Price Office usually
used
persuasion or adjusted one of the economic regulators to
implement its decisions.
In the late 1980s, to oversee economic policy the
National
Assembly had committees on planning and finance, industry,
agriculture, and commerce
(see National Assembly
, ch. 4).
The
assembly's role in economic policy making was growing, but
it was
still far less important than its Western counterparts.
Data as of September 1989
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