BREAKING NEWS – PM Orbán: Budapest Airport again to be majority-owned by state ‘within days’
The government trusts that Ferenc Liszt International Airport will once again be majority-owned by the state within the next few days, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in parliament on Monday.
At the same time, the government will soon decide on transport infrastructure to and from the airport, Orbán said, answering a question about a proposed rail shuttle.
As we wrote earlier, Budapest Airport can become one of Europe’s main cargo hubs, and Orbán cabinet wants to buy it, too. Details are here.
Meanwhile, asked by LMP lawmaker Máté Kanász-Nagy about developments in Budapest, Orbán dismissed the charge that the central government was deliberately “punishing” the capital.
Orbán said the Fidesz-run Budapest administration had taken over 280 billion forints in debt in 2010-11, yet 4,000 billion forints had been spent on developments in recent years.
The prime minister said he “loved” the city and its people, “but the country isn’t only composed of Budapest”.
He added that Budapest had benefitted from hundreds of billions of forints of state money, which he called a disproportionate amount compared with other parts of the country.
- read also – Budapest Airport loan faces OLAF investigation: Allegations of misconduct surface
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When the government is broke and running deficits that reached 6.5% of GDP for 2023 you have to ask yourself what a broke government is doing spending money it doesn’t have on the airport? What is the cost to Hungarian taxpayers in the form of billions of Euros that could be spent on health care, education, public transit, etc.? How will the state purchase of the airport in any way make the lives of Hungarians better and is it worth the cost of the money spent to buy it? Lastly, beware that at some future date the Fidesz government will suddenly announce that it will sell its’ majority stake in the airport to guess who? – a connected Hungarian oligarch thus keeping the airport in “Hungarian hands” and it will be at a loss. Someone in the Fidesz circle will end up owning the airport subsidized by the tax money and debt of ordinary Hungarians.
Makes sense. This is a strategic asset of national importance and it should not be in the hands of private, worse: foreign, corporations. And the fact that you can only reach it by expensive cab or overcrowded and slow bus is a national disgrace.