2008 Hungarian Financial Crisis

By 2004 Hungary had become a member of the European Union (EU), successfully transformed itself from a centrally planned to a market economy, and similarly to other new EU member states embarked on a path towards convergence with the old EU member states. Despite its encouraging growth performance, irresponsible domestic economic policy together with global financial turmoil brought Hungary to financial crisis in the fall of 2008. A rescue package from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union eased the situation, but the perspectives on future Hungarian stability and growth are still quite bleak in view of deferred reforms and political instability.

This CASE Network E-brief was also released in the February 2nd edition of the Central European Digest published by the Washington DC-based Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).