Hungary – On 1 January 2024, the new „CSOK Plus” scheme will come into force, as announced by the Hungarian Minister for Culture and Innovation, János Csák. This change concerns the flagship measure of Viktor Orbán’s pro-natalist programme, which is a „family housing creation allowance” (családi otthonteremtési kedvezmény, CSOK). This aid is intended to encourage middle-class Hungarian families to have more children.
Previously, the csok was a subsidy for families; the new formula is a subsidised loan combined with debt relief for each new birth. The main features of this measure include:
Depending on the number of children (1, 2 or 3 or more), subsidised loans of 15, 30 or 50 million forints (i.e. 40,000, 80,000 or 131,000 euros) will be available to families.
Only married couples are eligible.
The subsidised interest rate will be 3%, with a term of between 10 and 25 years, with the interest rate guaranteed until the loan matures.
The loan can only be used to purchase a home, not land.
For a couple to qualify for the 'csok plus’, the woman will have to be under 41, while certain arrangements will be put in place for two years for older women.
10% equity will be sufficient for the purchase of a first home; for renovations or the purchase of a new home, a deductible of 20% will have to be added.
In the case of the purchase of a first home, the total investment must be at least 80 million forints (210,000 euros), and 150 million forints (395,000 euros) in the case of renovation or the purchase of a new home.
Repayments in the first year will only be applied to the capital borrowed, while if a child is born, the borrower will be able to request a one-year moratorium on the loan.
Finally, the amount of capital to be repaid will be reduced by 10 million forints on the birth of the second and each subsequent child.
In an interview published in Portfolio.hu on 6 November, the Minister for the Family, Ágnes Hornung, explained that the previous CSOK formula had „in many ways become obsolete in recent months, as the subsidy amounts no longer make sense in today’s housing market, in an economic environment changed by the war [in Ukraine] and the [resulting economic] sanctions”. According to the Minister, „the introduction of CSOK Plus will cost HUF 10 to 15 billion in 2024.”
This update comes at a time when inflation has reached record levels in Hungary, but also when demographic indicators, after a decade of improvement, have continued to deteriorate since the Covid episode. The containment measures and their many consequences, as well as the mass injection campaign with its deleterious side-effects, particularly on fertility, are a major factor in this deterioration.
In August 2023, 7% fewer births were recorded than the previous year, and the number of marriages had collapsed, falling by 29% over the period January-August 2023 compared with the same period the previous year. The fertility rate, which rose from 1.25 in 2010 to 1.59 in 2021, has fallen back to 1.52 in 2022, and all the signs are that it will fall again in 2023.