February is the new date for the transaction.Continue reading
Budapest Airport has clarified all the issues raised during the audit conducted by the European Investment Bank (EIB), the company operating the airport told Világgazdaság, after Politico reported on Friday that the EU’s anti-fraud office is investigating one of the company’s loan transactions.
Politico wrote about a EUR 200 million loan to the operator of Budapest Liszt Ferenc International Airport. Investigators looking into the transaction have most recently interviewed the former EIB vice-president, Vazil Hudák. The paper, citing internal documents, claims that the EU’s anti-fraud office, OLAF, is investigating allegations of “serious misconduct” by EIB staff in connection with a EUR 200 million loan to Budapest Airport in 2018. The newspaper makes serious allegations, reporting that
OLAF was tipped off about Hudák because he could have personally benefited from the approval of the loan.
Vazil Hudák is a former Slovak Minister of Economy, who headed the EIB’s Central and Eastern Europe department from October 2016 to October 2019, before joining the board of Budapest Airport in 2020. He rejected the accusation, calling it false and untrue. An OLAF spokesman only said that they would not comment on specific cases.
The complaint also states that the expansion of the airport – also being financed by this loan – did not comply with environmental and other standards. OLAF officials wanted to know whether the project did not fully meet the bank’s standards and whether Hudák had exerted any pressure on the financial institution’s staff not to take certain criteria into account in the loan evaluation process. Hudák said that this was an impossible assumption, given the number of people involved in making such a loan decision. He added that the scheme was being worked on by bank staff before he started his job as vice-president.
Frankly, if I wanted to, I would not even know how I would be able to exert any influence. Given the number of staff involved and the complexity of the decision-making, it is impossible. Everyone has to agree in this long project cycle approval,”
he wrote to OLAF.
Budapest Airport Zrt. confirmed to Világgazdaság that it has an approved EIB loan. About two thirds of this amount has already been drawn down for the airport’s development. They stressed that they have done so in compliance with EIB requirements and the applicable legal requirements, including obtaining the necessary permits. At the same time, they stressed that they would like to point out that the EIB’s investigation was an examination of the EIB’s own internal procedures in relation to the Budapest Airport investments.
The airport also indicated that the report did not identify any substantive objections, only procedural ones. They also pointed out that the procedure concerning them was not exceptional or special, given that
similar investigations are currently being carried out in a number of European countries in connection with EIB investments.
“Budapest Airport has been involved in the process as an external actor since the start of the formal complaints mechanism. It has fully cooperated and provided all the necessary information and documents,” the airport operator said in its response. They also underlined that Budapest Airport has clarified all issues raised during the EIB audit with the EIB, however, did not comment specifically on Hudák’s role.
Via Világgazdaság, Politico; Featured image: Facebook/Budapest Airport