More than nine months ago, we launched our Hungary Decides series, in which we provided weekly summaries of news from Hungary’s election campaign.
The series continued, covering developments following the historic election and the steps taken by the Tisza government.
This week, we look at the following topics:
Former foreign minister Péter Szijjártó’s public procurements may be investigated;
chaos surrounding the overhaul of public media;
parliament will vote on Friday on the head of the National Office for Asset Protection and Recovery;
the deadline for securing the EU’s Recovery & Resilience Facility (RRF) funds expires on Monday;
a state celebration organised through a sham procurement procedure.
Foreign minister Anita Orbán filed a criminal complaint with the prosecutor general’s office on suspicion of misappropriation, causing particularly significant financial loss and other criminal offences, in connection with public procurements carried out by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (KKM), then headed by Péter Szijjártó, as part of the response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Under Szijjártó’s leadership, the purchases made in March and April 2020 were exempted from the rules governing public procurement procedures.
The ministry consequently purchased ventilators, protective equipment, PCR tests and medicines. A total of 19,002 ventilators were procured because of the pandemic, of which 16,853 were purchased by Szijjártó’s ministry for approximately 300 billion forints—around €845m at the exchange rate prevailing at the time, roughly 355 forints to the euro.
According to the current internal investigation, serious problems arose during the procurements concerning the quantity, price, usability and financial rationale of the purchases. Anita Orbán said that the findings to date raised suspicions of misappropriation causing particularly significant financial loss and other criminal offences, as well as the responsibility of the ministry’s former senior leadership.