A child forced to watch his father’s execution before being shot in the head, thousands of drivers missing from public transport, an insane technological arms race on the front, integration difficulties for returning veterans, nerve-wracking night-time bombings – these are all stories from Ukraine, where I had the chance to meet with government officials, civil leaders, and journalists.
Private equity funds have become the primary tool for wealth concealment and siphoning off public funds in Hungary, while neither the operation of these funds nor state capital investments are transparent — as revealed in a recent study by Transparency International (TI) Hungary. Hungary's anti-money laundering regulations violate EU law, as they do not include provisions for recording the actual owners of private equity funds. Consequentially, the European Commission initiated infringement proceedings against Hungary in July 2024.
The Gyurcsány government leased the airport for 75 years and collected 464.5 billion forints. The Orbán government is offering 1,400 billion forints to buy out the foreign operators 56 years before the contract expires. According to this, "sovereignty" is worth three times more than the "failed privatization."