Once more about land ownership

Burgerné Gimes, Anna

Keywords: land policy, liberalisation of land ownership, prohibition of land acquisition, land regulation, public land fund

There are many arguments for the liberalisation of land ownership in Hungary. These include in the first place that the domestic market should be liberalised as soon as possible by lifting restrictions on land acquisition and ownership to strengthen agricultural development. Lifting the prohibition of land acquisition by foreigners is a requirement arising not only from the directives and regulations of the EU concerning the free movement of goods, persons and capital but also from the rules of the market economy relating to the free movement of goods, property and services. The majority of the new Member States have already considerably released or completely abolished the restrictions on the free trade in land. Nevertheless, the Hungarian government intends to request the EU to renew the seven-year moratorium on the free market of land for another three years. Moreover, the national land regulation to be enacted will probably impose heavy restrictions on the free trade in land after the moratorium is lifted.
The state should rightly use the public land fund – or at least part of it – for the alleviation of poverty.

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