Átlátszó.hu’s team successfully revealed the government elite’s summer vacations. many used a luxury yacht and also an aeroplane, including Viktor Orbán PM. The private yacht and the luxury plane crossed path several times this summer.
Átlátszó, a non-governmental organisation in Hungary has been tracking the paths of two luxury vehicles this summer, and both were used by high-level politicians and members of the government’s and the party’s elite. The NGO followed the routes of the luxury private yacht, and an officially Austrian private plane, which the PM has been seen using many times.
The yacht and the plane, somewhat unsurprisingly, crossed paths frequently this summer, including programs such as football matches and luxury vacations in Croatia.
The luxury yacht that the Fidesz-elite was photographed on is called Lady Mrd and has been up for sale for EUR 20,9 million last year. It is registered as a private vehicle in Malta, which cannot be used by others but the owners. Although the yacht is registered under a Maltese company name, it is at least ambiguous that the company manages around 200 offshore companies.
The owners of the yacht are the same as of another one, which has also been used by Lőrinc Mészáros, as photographed by Magyar Narancs in 2016.
Take a look at a video of the boat here to get familiar with how it feels like to be Viktor Orbán’s friend:
The private jet’s owner, on the other hand, remains unknown. There are some other things regarding the jet: it is worth an enormous amount, EUR 53 million, and is registered in Vienna, Austria. The extremely expensive jet is, however, almost always parked at the Budapest Airport.
It is even more peculiar that the private jet had the same destinations where Lady Mrd was situated.
Also, Viktor Orbán has been photographed using the jet, and it can be presumed that he used it on several occasions, including football matches in Russia for the World Cup finals.
Besides Orbán and Lőrinc Mészáros, there have been other guests at the special parties organised at luxury vacation spots. Átlátszó managed to take a drone video, which helped discover many other participants: Róbert Homolya, head of the Hungarian state railway company (MÁV), government commissioner Ernő Kovács, and a Fidesz-close businessman, László Szíjj.
All this data is concerning enough, while one might also wonder where the money for these expensive travels and private yachts, jets came from.
Although the government’s officials seem to think that is not worth to tell the Hungarian public how they spend their holidays spending the money of Hungarian taxpayers, the opposition parties seem to think otherwise. As Index.hu writes, left-wing opposition party Párbeszéd issues a procedure of corruption charges and declarations of assets and income from the participants of the “holiday”.
In case you want to go even deeper in the topic, check out this video done by Átlátszó (please turn on CC for English subtitles):
It turned out last month that Hungary is on the list of the latest report by the United Nations for intimidation against those contributing to the work of the UN in the field of human rights. Recently, the Secretary General of the European University Association wrote about Hungarian politics in the Guardian.
We have previously shared that foreign papers see worrying tendencies in Hungarian political life, including The Guardian’s concerns about the breach in Hungarian media freedom and the OSCE’s critical analyses about the elections in April.
Featured image: facebook.com/orbánviktor, vimeo.com
Most country leaders fly private jets and holiday on yacht. The important fact is that it is not paid for by the taxpayers of the country. Everyone deserves a holiday.