The European Anti-Fraud Office is a bit slow: The case of the Heart of Budapest project

Well, we are back in Budapest’s District V, which is known by many names: Lipótváros (Leopoldstadt), Belváros (Downtown), or lately for a little political propaganda “The Heart of Budapest.” At least this was the name of the mega-project undertaken within the boundaries of the district that made the historic district mostly traffic-free and repaved the streets between Kálvin tér and Szabadság tér, stretching 1.7 km, with fancy cobble stones. Like everything else, the project was largely financed by the European Union.

It was Antal Rogán, the newly elected mayor of the district, who came up with the idea of revamping downtown Pest shortly after the municipal election of 2006. He convinced the City Council of Greater Budapest to apply to Brussels for a grant, and it seemed that at least on the surface the SZDSZ-MSZP city and the Fidesz district were of one mind. We mustn’t forget that at this time Antal Rogán was considered to be a moderate and reasonable man. Later the Fidesz media praised him as a truly remarkable Fidesz mayor who managed, despite the fact that the city of Budapest and the government were in SZDSZ-MSZP hands, to receive a huge sum of money for the development of his district. Well, the Heart of Budapest project really was impressive. A good portion of District V became something of a showcase.

The renovated Károly körút – Photo András Földes

As we know, Antal Rogán has had his share of his political trouble ever since Péter Juhász, who was Együtt’s candidate for mayor last October, decided to investigate shady real estate deals during Rogán’s tenure. I wrote about corruption in the district in December and again in January. Juhász, unlike most Hungarian politicians, doesn’t give up. Whether he will succeed in putting Rogán in jail remains to be seen.

What Rogán did not need was another scandal. But he’s under attack yet again, this time in connection with the Heart of Budapest project. The internet site vs.hu reported yesterday that OLAF, the European Anti-Fraud Office working under the aegis of the European Commission, found serious irregularities in connection with Rogán’s project. According to vs.hu, OLAF finished its investigation at the end of last year and called upon the Hungarian Chief Prosecutor’s Office to begin an investigation of the case. Naturally, OLAF’s findings were also sent to the European Commission. The Chief Prosecutor’s Office admitted that they received the documentation that supports OLAF’s case but said that “currently work is being done on the translation of the material.” Knowing the Chief Prosecutor’s Office, they will work on that translation for months if not years. Moreover, some opposition politicians learned that in the last few years the Chief Prosecutor’s Office received several dozen such complaints, but as far as we know Chief Prosecutor Péter Polt’s crew did nothing about them.

This is not the first time that questions have been raised about the project. At the end of 2012 OLAF found that not everything was in order. There was a good possibility that both District V and the city of Budapest would have to pay sizable fines: about 900 million forints each. The charge? The officials of the district and the city who were handling the bidding process demanded such unnecessary qualifications from the applicants that only one combined firm, Reneszánsz Kőfaragó Zrt and Bau Holding 2000, forming the Heart of Budapest Consortium, could possibly undertake the work. The bidding was theoretically open to foreign firms as well, but I doubt that much effort was put into finding non-Hungarian companies for the job.

What kinds of unreasonable demands did the authorities insist on? To qualify, a company had to have references for 1.2 billion forints worth of work on historic buildings even though the new project focused on repaving streets. There was absolutely no restoration of historic buildings. This ploy is commonly used in Hungary to make sure that the “right” company is the successful bidder. In Hungary 40% of all projects end up with a single bidder. Every time such a thing happens we can be pretty sure that corruption is not far away.

In 2012, when this story broke, Rogán and his deputy András Puskás, who has since left the district under the cloud of possible corruption, argued that there was nothing wrong with the project. It was done properly. The problem, they countered, was that the European Commission didn’t like the Orbán government and concocted this case to attack Viktor Orbán and his politics.

Now that OLAF finally got to the point of calling on the Chief Prosecutor, the district is trying to shift the blame to the current opposition. After all, the argument goes, the first phase of the project was finished in 2009 when Gordon Bajnai was prime minister. And Gordon Bajnai was present at the official opening. I guess that, according to the brilliant logic of the editorial offices of Magyar Nemzet, Bajnai had something to do with passing on the job to an earlier designated firm just because he cut the tricolor ribbon at the opening ceremony. For good measure, Magyar Nemzet added that Viktor Szigetvári, co-chair of Együtt and then Bajnai’s chief-of-staff, participated in the negotiations. Szigetvári calls the accusation a lie.

In addition, Magyar Nemzet blames the SZDSZ-MSZP administration of the city of Budapest. “All this happened during the era of Demszky-Hagyó-Steiner.” Pál Steiner was the whip of the MSZP caucus on the city council while Miklós Hagyó was the MSZP deputy mayor. Hagyó was later accused in a vast corruption case, which is still pending. The lurid details of the case tarnished MSZP and helped Fidesz coast to an overwhelming victory, resulting in a two-thirds majority in 2010.

OLAF has been investigating for the last six years. Right now, the Chief Prosecutor’s office is busily, or not so busily, translating. When do you think we will know exactly what happened? If you ask me, never.

 

Brussels’ suspension of payments for most of Hungary’s cohesion projects

It was on May 1 that I first reported that 444.hu, a new Internet website, published an article according to which sometime during the summer of 2012 the European Union suspended payment for cohesion fund projects. The apparent reason was that Brussels discovered that there was discrimination against foreign engineers. Only engineers who belong to the Hungarian Society of Engineers could be hired.

I expressed my doubt that the only reason for the suspension of billions of euros was discrimination against foreign engineers, although I do know that such discrimination within the EU is strictly forbidden. I suspected that Ferenc Gyurcsány’s Demokratikus Koalíció, which had brought Lajos Simicska’s Közgép to the attention of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) , might have had something to do with the suspension of funds.

At that time the government offered only a couple of soothing assurances that all was well. One government official even insisted that the requisite membership in the Hungarian Society of Engineers was not really discriminatory because, after all, foreign engineers could join the society. The Hungarian government seemed to be quite sure of itself.

By now, however, the Orbán government seems to be in a total panic. There is still no resolution of the European Union’s suspension of payments for 13 of the 15 operative programs financed from Brussels, and in the worst case scenario Hungary might lose somewhere between two and four billion euros in EU grant money.

Let’s look at a few of the details. I should note here that I feel sorry for those journalists who don’t speak Hungarian and have to rely on information that is available on government sites because very often the English version of the press releases bears no resemblance even to the government doctored news in Hungarian. The August 12 press release on “Action plan to avoid losing EU funds” is a good example of this practice because it says not a word about the suspended funds. The Hungarian version published on the Office of the Prime Minister’s site is more informative.  János Lázár, the new head of the Nemzeti Fejlesztési Felügyelet (NFÜ, National Development Agency), announced at his press conference that “the European Union raised concerns with several large development programmes” and that  Lázár “has already asked European Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn to assure completion of related negotiations at the earliest opportunity so that Hungary may utilise the maximum amount of funds available within the 2007-2013 programming period.” This, however, is still not the whole truth.

Lázár actually said that of the 20 billion euros allocated to Hungary for 2007 through 2013 there is a good possibility of losing about 2 billion euros if no agreement is reached before the end of the year. He didn’t dwell on the reasons for the suspension of funds but showed himself eager to “close the disputes between Hungary and the European Union.” The Hungarian government is ready to pay the fines that will most likely be forthcoming without turning to the European Court of Justice because of the urgency. He indicated that he would be happy if Hungary had to pay only 50-70 billion Hungarian forints.

János Lázár at his press conference / Photo Károly Árvai

This withholding of funds is only one of the problems. The other is that Hungary has only a few more months to utilize the remaining grant money, about 1 billion euros, that until now has not been allocated.

What happened? In 2010 the Orbán government completely reorganized NFÜ, which entailed firing 170 of the 210 employees of the agency. Brussels was apparently stunned. They may also have considered Viktor Orbán’s “reorganization” illegal because the Hungarian government was supposed to ask approval of these changes from the European Union. Because of the reorganization there was practically no work on projects at the agency. And not a single new project was launched. I might add here that today NFÜ has 600 employees and, as Lázár made clear at his press conference, there is no plan to reduce the size of the staff.

Meanwhile, just as I suspected back in May, concern was raised in Brussels over the alleged widespread corruption in the dispersion of funds, currently being investigated by the police. Most of the corruption that is under investigation happened when the Hungarian government tried to allocate money to small- and medium-size Hungarian businesses. Then there was the case when NFÜ wanted to decide the winner by lottery, which Brussels gravely objected to and eventually managed to stop. Sometimes grants were handed out without open competition. It is also known that there were occasions when firms with close ties to Fidesz offered assistance (naturally for a fee) to smaller companies without political connections. As far as I know, Közgép, the largest recipient of EU funds and according to some the most tainted, is not under investigation.

The question of the operative project funds was discussed yesterday at the cabinet meeting. As usual, not much can be learned from the press release except that the decision was made to create a new “working group” within NFÜ called “Tervezési Támogatási Munkaszervezet” (Planning and Assisting Working Organization) which is supposed have “functions of direction within the organization units.” Whatever that means.

According to MSZP’s Gábor Harangozó, although Lázár talked about 2 billion euros (500-600 billion forints) that needs to be approved by the European Commission and spent this year, in his opinion the real figure might be as high as 1,500-1,200 billion forints or about 4 billion euros. Right now no money is coming from Brussels, not even for projects that are already under construction. Moreover, it seems that the Hungarian government, which is supposed to be the guarantor of EU subsidies, doesn’t have the resources to pay the companies that are working on these projects.

Harangozó inquired in writing from Viktor Orbán about key details of the case. For example, how long has the Hungarian government known about the European Union’s objections to the government’s handling of the grants? When did Brussels turn off the spigot? Did the European Union complain about government corruption? MSZP also inquired about the situation from the director-general of the European Council.

Today the government, obviously feeling the pinch, reacted to Harangozó’s statements. They countered that Hungary “has lost billions of euros due only to the incompetence of the Gyurcsány-Bajnai governments.” According to the government press release, during Gordon Bajnai’s tenure as the head of NFÜ “76% of the money for development that was spent was not in accordance with rules and regulations.” In any case, one of the first announcements of Lázár after the cabinet meeting yesterday was that the Orbán government will re-examine all projects, including those long since finished, beginning with 2007.

In brief, a new attack on Ferenc Gyurcsány and Gordon Bajnai is in the offing. If they follow their usual pattern they will darkly hint at all sorts of irregularities, fraud, and corruption. Then the police and the prosecutors will madly search for evidence while Magyar Nemzet reports on lurid details of the investigation that they gleaned from reliable sources. The whole circus will last at least until the elections. A tried and true campaign strategy.

Greed might be the undoing of Viktor Orbán and his regime

Today I’m going to look at two corruption cases that might have serious consequences for the Fidesz empire in Hungary. The first is the “seizure” of the profitable retail tobacco market and its redistribution among friends and families of Fidesz politicians. It seems that the government may have gone too far here; there are signs of internal party opposition. We know only about small fry at the moment, but that doesn’t mean that dissatisfaction isn’t present in the highest circles of the Fidesz leadership.

The other scandal is not new at all. For years Közgép, a company owned by Lajos Simicska, a childhood friend of Viktor Orbán, has won practically all government projects financed by European Union subsidies. But it came to light only now that Brussels suspended payments on two very important “operative programs,” one dealing with the environment and energy and the other with transportation.

First, the response of  two party faithfuls to the tobacco shop scandal. On April 26 HVG received a letter from a Fidesz city council member in which he said that in his town the Fidesz members of the council decided who would get the tobacco concessions. At that point the informer didn’t want to reveal his identity, but two days later he was ready to give an interview, name and all. It is a long interview from which I will quote the key sentences.

Ákos Hadházy is a veterinarian in Szekszárd, the county seat of Tolna. He considers himself to be a conservative, but “this tobacconist shop-affair broke something in [him].” The Fidesz members of the council looked at all the applicants and suggested who should get favorable treatment.” Mostly friends and relatives. Hadházy struggled with his conscience. He felt that the way the selection was made was wrong, but at the same time he realized that “many would consider revealing his doubts a betrayal” of his party. Finally he decided that although “perhaps in the short run the party might lose a few percentage points, in the long run these revelations might actually be good for this party.”

In his opinion “the 2010 landslide victory was a fantastic opportunity, but at the same time such a large victory is harmful for a party.” A well functioning opposition is “a basic necessity…. If there is no opposition, sooner or later [the party leadership] will be unable to control [its] own decisions. There will be no reaction when [they] make wrong decisions.” Unfortunately this is what happened in Fidesz’s case.

Hadházy even went further and announced that the problem is that there is no opposition within the party either. The members of parliament are no more than voting machines because after 2014 there will be fewer seats available and naturally everybody would like to keep his job. “One can’t expect negative opinions from them…. If there are no debates within a party … then there are only two possibilities: either [the party] does something fantastically well or something is not right.” Most often decisions are unanimous. Ordinary party members are not consulted. Maybe once a year there is a meeting of the local party members, but that’s all.

Fidesz is indeed a very disciplined party, but he thinks they “went too far.” Such discipline was fine when Fidesz was in opposition. Then “the para-military structure was acceptable, but when in power the party should have moved in a more democratic direction.” Hadházy believes–I think wrongly–that Fidesz has fantastic “intellectual capital” but doesn’t try to use this capacity and doesn’t listen to them. “This in the long run is a suicidal strategy because the members of the intelligentsia  are the ones who can influence public opinion.”

As far as he is concerned there are two possibilities: the party will not take kindly to his going public and then his political career will be over. If, on the other hand, he is spared he “will be very glad to know that Fidesz is full of real democrats, even if this is not always evident given how decisions are made now.”

The other rebel is András Stumpf of the pro-government Heti Válasz.  Don’t think that András Stumpf is a “soft” Fidesz supporter. He is no Bálint Ablonczy, another reporter for the same weekly, who is a moderate right-winger. Stumpf is pretty hard-core. He aggressively defends the government at every opportunity–for instance, when he appears on ATV’s Start. Even in this critical article he expresses his belief that Sándor Laborc of the Office of National Security hired Tamás Portik to spy on the opposition, meaning Fidesz. Yet it seems that the tobacconist concessions and the amendment to the Freedom of Information Act were too much for him. Not even he believes that the quickly amended piece of legislation has nothing to do with the concessions and the government’s attempt to hide the truth from the public. In Stumpf’s opinion, the amendment is most likely unconstitutional and what the government is doing is “frightening.” If they have nothing to hide, make the documents public.

Moving on to the withheld EU payments, a new internet website, 444.hu, published an article entitled “Secret war between Budapest and Brussels” on April 30. According to the article, last summer the European Union suspended payment for cohesion fund projects. The apparent reason was that Brussels discovered that there is discrimination against foreign engineers. Only engineers who belong to the Hungarian Society of Engineers can be hired.

With due respect to the journalist of 444.hu, I can’t believe that this is the real reason for the suspension of billions of euros. Instead, I recall that about a year ago Ferenc Gyurcsány’s Demokratikus Koalíció turned to the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) to call attention to the fact that Közgép, Simicska’s company, had received an incredible number of government contracts, all financed by the European Union. The suspicion is that Közgép through Lajos Simicska is actually owned by Fidesz. Or at least a substantial percentage of  its profits ends up in party coffers. I remember that sometime during the summer of 2012 OLAF’s investigators took possession of Közgép’s computers. I suspect that the suspension of funds has more to do with Fidesz government corruption than with discrimination against foreign engineers.

By now opposition politicians are openly accusing Közgép of being a front for Fidesz. Gábor Scheiring (PM) said that “the essence of Lajos Simicska’s firm … is financing Fidesz from its profits.” Gyurcsány considers “Lajos Simicska  the most notorious and most influential person in Fidesz and the business establishment built around it.” László Varju, the party director of DK, in one of his press conferences talked about the need to investigate the possible “role of [Közgép] in the financing of the government party.” If it could be proven that Közgép and Simicska are just a front for Fidesz, Orbán might find himself and his party a lot poorer.