In Hungary, the Council of Europe's Centre of Expertise for Good Governance (CEGG) is currently implementing a joint European Commission-Council of Europe project to help the Hungarian National Association of Local Authorities (TÖOSZ), the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Finance strengthen dialogue and cooperation on intergovernmental financial relations, and improve access to and use of data by local authority stakeholders.re of the Interior and the Ministry of Finance to strengthen dialogue and cooperation on intergovernmental financial relations, and to improve access to and use of data by local authority stakeholders.

The CEGG, in close collaboration with the European Committee on Democracy and Governance, has identified a group of peers and experts from Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia and the UK to undertake a peer review in Budapest from September 12 to 14, 2023.The peer review team held discussions with representatives of the relevant Hungarian ministries and agencies, municipalities, local government associations and local government experts.

During the discussions, the peers shared their Member State's experience and good practice in key areas such as approaches to financial equirequation and the development of integrated databases for local authority finance and performance measurement. A peer review report will be prepared to reflect the discussions, and will include peer recommendations to support the Hungarian authorities in their efforts, based on European standards of good democratic governance as well as relevant examples from member states.

The project "Development of local government public finances and municipal capacity building in Hungary" is co-financed by the European Commission (DG REFORM) via theTechnical Support Instrument 2022 and the Council of Europe, and implemented by the Centre of Expertise for Good Governance.