Potential directions in land estate policy (Debate summary)

Kapronczai, István

Keywords: land estate policy, land ownership, land lease, land use, regulation of agricultural businesses

In volume II of the Gazdálkodás journal in 2010, I published an article titled “Topical issues of land ownership policy”. My intention was to raise questions and set forth conclusions relevant to the topic and thus generate a debate, a forum where scientific players can voice their opinion, contrast their views, get to know one another’s opinions better, and formulate policy proposals. Representatives of the science of agro-economy and others could participate in the debate concerning important issues of land estate policy such as land ownership, land use, land lease, land market, the regulation of agricultural businesses, the formation of estates, the inheritance of land, land acquisition by foreigners, governmental actions and the instruments used in such actions.
Even when I formulated the thoughts which started the debate, I was convinced that the topic should be addressed from the widest possible range of aspects, as the creation of a land estate policy requires a complex approach. This is due to practical as well as professional reasons: the more comprehensively this politically very sensitive topic is covered, the more opportunities we will have for compromise, for agreement, which can form the basis of joint work. The need for a complex approach is confirmed by the statement made by László Csete and Gabriella Barcza in the course of the debate: „the issue of land estates cannot be resolved in itself, limited to the issue of ownership, but only through consideration of a longer period and its wider context.”
The timing of the start of the debate - February last year - was prompted by the fact that already at that time it could be expected that the 2010 elections would bring a significant turn in Hungarian politics. Agricultural policy, as well as its decisive component, land estate policy, would play an important role in this change. As confirmed by nearly all participants of the debate, the situation – i.e. that none of the governments over the last decades paid as much attention to the countryside and the agricultural economy as they deserved on the grounds of their strategic, social and environmental importance - had become untenable. (In this respect, possibly only the first Orbán government was found less guilty by Alvincz, Barcza and Csete.) Now, if issues of agricultural and land estate policy are brought in focus, it is the common will of a team, a community, the joint opinion of the agricultural community that could help break free from the present difficult situation. The debate was intended as a contribution to this work – strategy-building, if you will –, to confirm, confute or complement the (pre)conceptions formulated by political actors.
We now know that the ban on land purchase by foreigners will be extended by the European Union to 2014. This is not a small feat of Hungarian agricultural diplomacy, as several of us voiced a pessimistic opinion in our articles on the probability of this occurring. The majority of the contributors agreed, however, that even in this case, the review and re-regulation of the relevant legal institutions should not be delayed, because - as pointed out by Zsolt Orlovits in the course of the debate - a relatively long transitional period is required for the successful adoption of a new land estate policy. With reference to the opportunities and responsibility of its two-thirds majority, it can be hoped that a clear direction and action based on professionally sound smart decisions soon becomes visible in the Government’s countryside-friendly agricultural policy.

Full article