DETOXIFICATION THROUGH LAW - The Orbán Government’s Solution for the Mortgage Crisis
DETOXIFICATION THROUGH LAW - The Orbán Government’s Solution for the Mortgage Crisis

Summary/Abstract: We live in an age of fierce global competition, owing in no small part to the permanent revolution of electronic communications. Today, news, ideas, images, even billions of dollars can be transferred from one continent to another at the speed of light, by a single click of a button or touch of the screen. The market for financial services is inundated by lucrative, highly sophisticated, and increasingly innovative products. Indeed, some of them are so complex that even the people selling them cannot always foretell how they will affect the markets. Information is overwhelming and scarce at the same time; at the very least, it is often hardly transparent. Ostensibly favourable conditions may turn out to be a decoy concealing a toxic product. And, as we know, certain toxins take a long time to get washed out of the system. The problem discussed in this essay first arose in 2006–2007, and we have not been able to address it in meaningful terms until now. The less transparent the market, the greater the responsibility of the state as the supreme body of public power to regulate it. This is certainly the approach embraced by the Fundamental Law of Hungary when it not only permits, but expressly requires the state to exercise this power and intervene in case of need. Furthermore, the Fundamental Law describes “decent housing” for everyone as a goal that the state must “strive to ensure”.1 Under these provisions, we in the government simply could not afford to risk the caving in of the mortgage market, which would undoubtedly have rendered huge numbers of families homeless.

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