CAN HUNGARY MAKE IT?

The new government has only been in office since May, and already it has to deal with a major drought crisis. The low level of the Danube affects the nuclear power plant at Paks: less water can mean less electricity. Given the importance of Paks to Hungary’s electricity production, the consequences can be significant.

A country can be understood as a web of resources: manpower, energy, natural resources, infrastructure, finances and military capability. Politics sits within this web, where pressure on one resource can quickly affect another.

Hungary is a relatively small country with limited resources. The government therefore needs to be well organised, but above all, it needs good intelligence about the state of affairs. It must understand this intricate web well enough to know not only how to respond to a crisis, but what consequences that response will have elsewhere.

Hungary will deal with the drought in one way or another. The real question is what will be affected in the process. Will fighting the drought increase public debt? Will resources have to be redirected from infrastructure, defence, healthcare or other priorities? Will the government need to find new sources of revenue?

This is the task that lies ahead for the government. Governing is not simply about solving the problem in front of you. It is about understanding what solving that problem does to the rest of the system.

Hungary can make it. The question is at what cost — and where in the web that cost will ultimately be felt.

WHY THIS MATTERS?

Because in a country with limited resources, the cost of a crisis is not only what it takes to solve it, but what must be postponed, reduced or redirected elsewhere.