Small shops and pubs will continue to receive support

They wrote: the government is committed to supporting villages, as it believes that villages should not be demolished, but built up.

To this end, for years it has been supporting the construction and renovation of roads connecting villages, inner-city streets, and, among other things, kindergartens, schools, medical clinics and service buildings.

This year, as a novelty, it is supporting the operation of small shops, the maintenance of small pubs and the renovation of churches, and is working to ensure that the population has unhindered access to cash in every settlement, i.e. that every settlement has an ATM

– they announced.

As a next step in reducing the development differences between certain areas of Hungary and preserving the population of small settlements, the government has decided to provide free of charge, under the Hungarian Village Program, unused state-owned real estate to settlements with a population of 5,000 or less, such as non-operating small settlement post offices, former savings cooperative branch properties, as well as apartments, residential buildings and properties that can be made suitable for residential purposes.

These properties can contribute, either directly or through utilization or sale, to the implementation of developments in small settlements in difficult situations that are tailored to local needs, and thus to increasing their population retention power – the Ministry of National Development and Reform announced.

There is a greater social interest in free property transfers that can significantly improve the quality of life of rural residents and address local-level problems – which are flexibly adapted to the needs and opportunities of settlements with smaller economic power – than in keeping these properties in state ownership.