Europe’s Future, Our Future in Europe – Convergence, Finance, Energy. Under this title, the Youth Committee of the Hungarian Economic Association (HEA YC) will organize the 43rd National Meeting of Young Economists (FIKOT) on Saturday, October 10, 2026, at the Rector’s Building of the University of Szeged. The organizers expect approximately 120–150 economics students from across Hungary and Transylvania to attend the conference. The congress will be streamed live on the HEA YouTube Channel.
The professional programme of the conference is built around three main topics. The finance session will explore what the introduction of the euro would mean for the Hungarian economy, including the benefits, challenges and conditions associated with joining the euro area. The energy session will examine how European energy policy, the geopolitical environment and new technologies are transforming Hungary’s energy sector. The entrepreneurship session will focus on the competitiveness and financing of the SME sector. All three topics ultimately address the same question: under what conditions and with what prospects can the Hungarian economy catch up with its European peers?
At the FIKOT opening plenary session, Péter Ákos Bod, Professor, Doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, former Governor of the Magyar Nemzeti Bank and Vice-President of the HEA, will give a presentation entitled “What Will We Be Paying With Five Years from Now?” Ádám Balog, entrepreneur and economist, President of the HEA Central and Eastern European Section, will speak about the future and prospects of Hungarian businesses.
The participants of the finance roundtable will be Zoltán Kurali, Vice-Governor of the Magyar Nemzeti Bank responsible for monetary policy, financial stability and foreign exchange reserve management; Éva Hegedüs, President and CEO of Gránit Bank Nyrt. and President of the HEA; and István Madár, Lead Analyst at Portfolio Group and member of the HEA Board. The energy roundtable will feature Ákos Horváth, physicist-engineer and Director General of the HUN-REN Centre for Energy Research, and Balázs Bozsik, Head of the organizational unit responsible for coordinating ESG performance at the MVM Group. The guests of the SME roundtable will be László Hunyadi, Deputy State Secretary responsible for the development of small and medium-sized enterprises at the Ministry for the Economy and Energy, and Róbert Szerdahelyi, Head of the SME Business Division at Erste Bank Hungary Zrt.
The detailed programme and registration are available at fikot.hu. The organizers reserve the right to make changes to the programme.