The member states of the European Union have to face the challenge of demographic aging. Taking the demographic characteristics of the member states, there are no essential differences in either the current or in the expected future development of the proportion of elderly people. Ageing affects several areas of the welfare regimes, but it is usually the health and pension systems and personal services that are highlighted. This paper deals with a special area of personal services, the family (informal) care and the support of carers in Hungary. The study introduces definitions of the informal care, welfare policies on family caregivers, the systematization attempts of the care policy in the member states, it analyzes the recent past and currently perceived care policy processes and ideologies, and finally describes the specific situation in the former Communist countries through an example of a Hungarian care policy. The basic idea of the article is that although the demographic challenges are similar, but the service policy and the development of the institutional systems show significant differences in each country. In addition to the underdeveloped institutional service system in the different countries, the post-Communist countries lack the supporting tools of the caring family members.