Fidesz calls for parliament committee to probe Alstom case involving former PM – UPDATE

Budapest, April 27 (MTI) – The Alstom case involving the French engineering company’s transfer of some 597,000 euros to a consultancy owned by former prime minister Péter Medgyessy’s family in 2007-2008 should be considered by parliament’s economic committee, ruling Fidesz group leader Lajos Kósa said on Wednesday.

The committee should question all the people involved, including former heads of Budapest public transport company BKV, former Budapest Mayor Gábor Demszky and Medgyessy, of the opposition Socialists, Kósa told public radio Kossuth.

It would be plausible to assume that the Socialist Party was involved as an accessory, Kósa said. As prime minister, Medgyessy immediately launched the metro 4 investment, which Kósa insisted had been murky. The breakdown of how the money was used and who received it must be investigated, Kósa said.

He told public news channel M1 that the state audit office had previously also investigated the metro contracts, including those signed with Alstom. Hungary’s state audit office established that the Hungarian state had suffered serious damages and now a British investigation has revealed that Alstom paid a bribe to BKV, Kósa said.

“No Hungarian prime minister had ever been involved in a corruption scandal on such a scale,” he added.

He said the Hungarian prosecutor’s office will consult the British authorities, adding that the fight against corruption was a common interest.

Fidesz’s Budapest chairman, Máté Kocsis, called on the city’s former left-wing representatives to account for the “disappeared Alstom funds”. He told a press conference that bribes suspected to total some 700 million forints had been transferred to decision-makers who helped Alstom provide the trains for metro 4. It should be assessed whether it is worth setting up an investigation committee for the next general assembly meeting, he added.