Hungarian Politics

[KRonn]

More messes. Too bad as it doesn't look like Hungary will be weaned from such heavy Russian influence and control anytime soon.

[Tamas]

Two new, quite descriptive bits on these finance scandals:

-at Buda-Cash, one of the execs bought 3000 pieces of state bonds for cca. 190 million euros for a "client", and he took the money away from the accounts of other clients to do that, without them knowing, obviously. The fake client had to be hard to spot for the authorities, I mean, he is supposed to be one of the richest guys in the country so no thinning the herd there, plus his name was Karacsony Miklos which translate to Christmas Klaus...

-at Qauestor, the leader of the company has a company in Moscow for "trading bacon". There are two other owners: a guy recently arrested for all kinds of shady private dealings involving Russian and Hungarian companies (more importantly, until his arrest, he was one of the main faces of the "Eastern Opening" the government's big campaign to do business with the east), AND the mayor of Orban's home village, who rose from a total nobody to a billionaire businessman during Orban's current reign, and is widely considered the frontman for Orban's "secret stash"

Now this mayor fellow did not include this Moscow company in his official wealth report he had to file as a politician. And this is the guy who recently added 1 billion forints (more than 3 million euros) to this report saying "he forgot about it".

[Syt]

uish.org/forums/index.php/board,1.0.html

EU blocks Hungary-Russia nuclear deal

The EU has blocked Hungary's €12bn nuclear deal with Russia, a decision that is likely to inflame tensions between the Kremlin and Brussels.
The ruling from the European Commission is a setback for Viktor Orban, Hungary's prime minister, who has courted the Kremlin despite the conflict in Ukraine.

Russia and Hungary agreed last year to build two 1,200 megawatt nuclear reactors in the town of Paks, 75 miles south of Budapest, in a deal that would have extended Moscow's commercial reach deep into central Europe. Contracts for designing, building and maintaining the plants were awarded to a subsidiary of Russia's state-owned nuclear group Rosatom in December.

But critics of Mr Orban feared the deal would increase Hungary's already heavy energy dependence on Russia.

Many EU officials also expressed concern that Moscow was using energy policy to divide Europe and undermine the bloc's consensus on sanctions imposed on Russia over its actions in eastern Ukraine.

Arguments have raged for weeks over the technical, financial and fuel provision agreements of the contracts with Rosatom. All nuclear fuel supply contracts signed by EU member states must be approved by Euratom, which imposes financial and technical requirements on fuel suppliers.

In the end, Euratom refused to approve Hungary's plans to import nuclear fuel exclusively from Russia. Hungary appealed against the decision but, according to three people close to the talks, the European Commission has now thrown its weight behind Euratom's rejection of the contract.

The decision, details of which were kept secret, came at a meeting in Brussels last week of all 28 EU commissioners, including Hungary's Tibor Navracsics.

The result is to block the whole Paks II expansion. To revive it, Hungary would need to negotiate a new fuel contract or pursue legal action against the commission.
The ruling throws a spanner in the works of a project that Mr Orban has put at the centre of his strategy to build closer links with Russia.

"If the Russians now refuse to modify the original contracts, this will be the end of the road for the project," said Javor Benedek, a Hungarian member of the European Parliament's Green group. "The report is very clear that the fuel supply agreement does not comply with European law."

Mr Orban won €10bn in financial backing for the scheme from President Vladimir Putin of Russia in January 2014.

Budapest's decision to award the bulk of contracts for the two reactors to Rosatom without a public competition prompted the commission to launch a probe into whether the deal violated public procurement and state aid rules. The investigations are continuing.

The Financial Times in February reported that EU experts were examining aspects of the deal, including the role of Rosatom subsidiaries to supply reactor fuel.

The two reactors currently in operation at Paks produce 40 per cent of the country's electricity and the central European country relies on Moscow for 60 per cent of its gas imports and 80 per cent of oil imports.

Almost all details of the contracts have been kept secret and Hungary's parliament last week extended official secrecy provisions on the contracts for 30 years, citing national security concerns.

A spokesman for the government said there were no obstacles to the deal proceeding as planned.

[Tamas]

Yeah well they blocked the clause that only Russians can sell fuel to the new plant. So its more like doing a favour to Western suppliers, since Russia and Hungary can just reneg on that part and sign a new contract.

Question is: will Russia want that, will they insist on getting all the perks, or they will just use the excuse to dance out of the deal when they are short on money anyways? (They would be the ones giving the huge-ass loan to Hungary).

[frunk]

Yeah well they blocked the clause that only Russians can sell fuel to the new plant. So its more like doing a favour to Western suppliers, since Russia and Hungary can just reneg on that part and sign a new contract.

Question is: will Russia want that, will they insist on getting all the perks, or they will just use the excuse to dance out of the deal when they are short on money anyways? (They would be the ones giving the huge-ass loan to Hungary).

I'm assuming that the deal is a form of money laundering, so I'd expect a modified deal to go forward provided Putin thinks he has some other way of guaranteeing that Orban will strictly "buy" Russian. 

[Tamas]

Yeah well they blocked the clause that only Russians can sell fuel to the new plant. So its more like doing a favour to Western suppliers, since Russia and Hungary can just reneg on that part and sign a new contract.

Question is: will Russia want that, will they insist on getting all the perks, or they will just use the excuse to dance out of the deal when they are short on money anyways? (They would be the ones giving the huge-ass loan to Hungary).

I'm assuming that the deal is a form of money laundering, so I'd expect a modified deal to go forward provided Putin thinks he has some other way of guaranteeing that Orban will strictly "buy" Russian.

Yeah.

Also it is looking more and more likely that Orban and his circle are helping the Russians to push out all other gas providers in the industrial sector.

There is a highly suspicious company, MET, with various offshore companies linked to Orban's inner circle owning it. They are the ones buying and re-selling most of the incoming gas already (I am blurry on the details ATM).
And nobody knows for how much they are buying it (from Russia especially) since that is no public info, and conviniently, the state gas price regulator office can request no info on it.

I can dig up more details on that, but the basi scenario seems to be: Orban makes concessions to Putin. His ( his friends') gas company gets cheap gas from Russia, they sell it back to the Hungarian state on market prices, and they pocket the difference.
Even if remotely true I believe it constitutes treason.

[Tamas]

Latest poll shows Jobbik growing steadily.

Fidesz 21%
Jobbik 18%
Socialists 12%
Ex-Socialist PM's party 4%
Green Fidesz-creation fake party (LMP) 3%
Assorted lefties 2% altogether
Undecided 37%


So it is becoming safe to conclude, that the Hungarian people have taken a good hard look at the Russia-friendly moderate national socialist party's reign, and is disapproving. In their righteous disapproval, the people are turning to a Russia-financed, radical national socialist party to make things better.

[KRonn]

So it is becoming safe to conclude, that the Hungarian people have taken a good hard look at the Russia-friendly moderate national socialist party's reign, and is disapproving. In their righteous disapproval, the people are turning to a Russia-financed, radical national socialist party to make things better.

Ouch.... So not really much difference in the two, just the name of the party and leader. 

[Caliga]

People really need to use Pattonisms more often.

Valmy, you magnificent bastard.... I READ YOUR POST!!!

[Valmy]

Latest poll shows Jobbik growing steadily.

Fidesz 21%
Jobbik 18%
Socialists 12%
Ex-Socialist PM's party 4%
Green Fidesz-creation fake party (LMP) 3%
Assorted lefties 2% altogether
Undecided 37%


So it is becoming safe to conclude, that the Hungarian people have taken a good hard look at the Russia-friendly moderate national socialist party's reign, and is disapproving. In their righteous disapproval, the people are turning to a Russia-financed, radical national socialist party to make things better.

Fascists 21%
Other Fascists 18%
Socialists 12%
Other Socialists 4%
Insane Leftist Party that is actually Fascist Puppet 3%
Other Leftists 2%
Looking for Work in Germany 37%

Damn I can see why you immigrated

[Tamas]

 

[Tamas]

Although it has been taken down since then either by Facebook or the creators, this morning Fidelitas, the youth organisation of Fidesz, announced the start of their "provocateur-watching" Facebook page.
They wanted people to send photos and personal information of "known provocateurs" attending anti-government demonstrations "posing as civilians" so that the you could put up said photo and personal information on the public Facebook page.

And they had like a proper press conference assembled to introduce it and shit.

Luckily Internet people quickly trolled the FB page into oblivion, so the fusion of 21st century technology with 1950s attitudes is not complete YET.

[KRonn]

Wow, old Soviet style intimidation and retribution coupled with 21st century tech! No wonder it got so badly trolled down.

[Tamas]

A memo made for Juncker in December got leaked. It was about preparing him for negotiations on the EU handouts to Hungary and why they were delayed.

According to the Hungarian government, payments have been resumed since then, but the interesting part is that the Hungarian delegation threatened the EU/shriked to the EU about the imminent collapse of the Hungarian budget if payments were not resumed.

[Tamas]

Wow, old Soviet style intimidation and retribution coupled with 21st century tech! No wonder it got so badly trolled down.

The ombudsam/whatever guy in charge of having an opinion on data privacy issues declared that this idea looks quite illegal.

Reaction? Now the big Fidesz party also supports the idea of posting people's photos and personal data on public Facebook as "provocateurs".