The 'palace' of the Orbán family stands as a symbol of corruption in Hungary

Some 40 kilometers west of Budapest, an imposing 13-hectare estate with a building complex under construction has become a symbol of opulence and corruption in Hungary.

The “Orbán palace”, as independent lawmaker Ákos Hadházy calls it, stands on land in the name of the father of the ultra-conservative prime minister, surrounded by some land belonging to the country's richest man, a childhood friend of Viktor Orbán.

The suspicions, the opacity and the millionaire connections close to the highest political power that surround the property of Hatvanpuszta function as an allegory of the system that has unleashed an unprecedented punishment this week in the EU: the proposal of the European Commission to freeze 7,500 million euros of community funds to the country due to corruption and the deterioration of the rule of law.

The independent press has been observing every movement on the farm by land and air since 2012, building a story reminiscent of Vladimir Putin's alleged secret palace on the shores of the Black Sea.

Numerous reports report a sumptuous library with wooden coffered ceilings, an underground garage, solar panels, service apartments, an orchard, stables... From the dirt track that is reached from a secondary road, on the other side of the billboards, part of the four main buildings with gray vaulted ceilings on white walls and wooden windows are visible.

Two of them reconstruct the old stables of the Archduke José Antonio de Austria.

An arch with two gatehouses at the unfinished entrance suggests the idea of ​​luxury and high security.

The prime minister has always distanced himself from the project, which he attributes to his father's businesses.

Babbet Oroszi, an investigative journalist who has made a documentary about the property, is convinced that "sooner or later, Orbán will live there."

“There are indications that Orbán is the owner of Hatvanpuszta,” she says, although she acknowledges that they have no solid proof.

What has been proven is that the land is in the name of Gyozo Orbán, who for a few years rented it to Lorinc Meszaros, supposedly to store agricultural machinery.

He, in turn, bought some land surrounding the facilities, explains Oroszi at the audiovisual production company where she works, in an Art Deco building in Budapest with huge windows.

Meszaros is a surname that appears in all conversations about corruption and oligarchs in Hungary, due to the suspicions generated by the large number of public contracts that it obtains and its relationship with the prime minister.

This former classmate of Orbán's has gone from managing a gas installation company to being the richest man in the country in the last decade, according to the Forbes list.

When asked in 2017 what he attributed his enormous success to, he replied: "To God, to luck and to Viktor Orbán."

Orbán's declaration of assets shows a person without savings and with two properties, a house in Budapest and another in his town, Felcsút, of which Meszaros was mayor and which is located about seven kilometers from the farm.

It is a modest white house with a one-story garden and an attic with a gabled roof, which MP Hadházy, one of the most critical voices against the corruption that emanates from the circles of power, describes as pure

.

It is a short walk from a pharaonic 3,500-seat soccer stadium for a village of 2,000, built on land in the name of Orbán's wife.

Hadházy, who acts as a guide on this particular tour, documents each step with his mobile phone and shows two works in progress with European co-financing from the former mayor's companies: a school and an artificial lake with an island, a bridge and a restaurant.

Near Hatvanpuszta, the last stop is a golf club that Orbán's father bought from Sándor Csányi, president of the OTP bank and the second richest person, according to Forbes, and that Meszaros now rents and manages.

connected companies

In a communication sent to the Council of the EU, the body that brings together the member countries, the European Commission warns about the awarding of contracts to specific companies that have gradually been gaining large market shares and sees an increase in the chances of winning contracts of the firms connected to actors of the party in power, Fidesz.

A study by the Budapest Corruption Research Center indicates that 21% of European funds since Orbán came to power have remained in the hands of just 42 companies.

The director of this independent organization defines Hungary as "a kleptocracy."

“The main objective of these systems is to be favorable to the political leader and to have all the institutions working on it,” adds Itsván Janos Toth.

The prime minister often speaks in his speeches of what he has called the "national cooperation system" (NER, in its Hungarian acronym), as an economic and governance model, explains Marta Pardavi, co-chair of the Helsinki Foundation, an organization defense of human rights that also works in the area of ​​the rule of law.

“NER shows up in a number of ways: one of them is the economy, with people who were unknown becoming extremely wealthy in the last 10 years, you don't know how,” she says.

In the Orbán family, not only the patriarch stands out in business.

The family has earned 15,000 million forints (36 million euros) in the last seven years from the father's mining companies and the son-in-law's companies, according to a journalistic investigation collected by Transparency International.

"They are intelligent;

the father has never won a public contract, but his companies participate as subcontractors ”, explains Toth.

The husband of the leader's eldest daughter, Itsván Tiborcz, is known in the country for the 2018 Elios scandal, a notorious case of corruption with European funds investigated by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF).

The entity observed serious irregularities in the operations of the company in which Tiborcz had shares and which won contracts worth 40 million euros for public lighting.

Since then, the son-in-law has focused on other sectors such as luxury real estate, tourism and banking.

Anti-corruption NGOs and the opposition denounce the inactivity of the public prosecutor's office in this field and believe that to guarantee justice it is crucial that Hungary join the European Public Prosecutor's Office.

“The attorney general is devoted to Orbán and has been appointed for a long term,” expert Aron Hajnal points out in a meeting room at Corvinus University, where he has investigated the relationship between corruption and democratic decline.

“In hybrid regimes there are often anti-corruption strategies and legislation, but in the absence of well-functioning democratic institutions (such as an impartial Prosecutor) they are ineffective against high-level corruption,” he explains.

The minister who has led the negotiations with the EU, Tibor Navracsics, defends the independence of the public ministry.

Regarding the wealth accumulated by people very close to the prime minister and the image he projects, he replies that Orbán "has friends, some rich and others poor."

"If there is any criminal activity, NGOs can show the evidence and file a criminal appeal or start an investigation," he settles.

Navracsics has defended before Brussels the measures undertaken by Hungary to reduce corruption, but these have not convinced the Commission, which recommends suspending funds that it considers at risk if they are transferred to Budapest.

With inflation above 21% and a borderline economic situation where discontent has crystallized into teacher protests —which have been revived this week—, this financing is crucial.

Critical voices believe that the compromises reached with Brussels are insufficient.

“The system is so greased that they no longer need to cheat.

Orbán's friends are the richest in the country.

Thank you, EU, but it is a bit late”, Oroszi ironically.

Parliamentarian Hadházy, a veterinarian turned politician who left Fidesz in 2013 to denounce corruption and lives devoted to that crusade, has flown over Hatvanpuszta in a small plane five or six times.

Upon insistence on asking him if he believes it plausible that it is nothing more than a business project of the prime minister's father, he replies: “It doesn't matter.

It cost a fortune and whatever the end, it doesn't come from clear sources."

“It's a chain: Meszaros wins public works tenders that are largely financed with European money.

Later he entrusts the material to Orbán's father.

This one obtains a large profit margin and builds buildings like the ones we have just seen, ”he sums up, as a scheme on that dense network, on the return trip to Budapest.

Follow all the international information on

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Keep reading

I'm already a subscriber