The Orbán government classified the background of the move, driving one of the opposition PM candidates to turn to the European Commission for an infringement procedure to be launched against them.Continue reading
The opposition Párbeszéd party has called on Hungary’s data protection authority (NAIH) to review whether the calculation of motorway concessions should remain subject to secrecy for the next ten years.
Párbeszéd had asked the Prime Minister’s Cabinet Office and the National Concession Office to provide the calculation to no avail, Bence Tordai, the party’s deputy group leader, told an online press briefing on Tuesday, citing a European Union directive concerning all concessions lasting more than five years requiring the demonstration that the stipulated length of the concession is necessary in order to guarantee a return on investment. The case in question stipulates a period of 35 years.
Tordai said independent experts had concluded that the concession tender would not be profitable for the Hungarian state and Hungarian taxpayers stood to lose several thousand billion forints.
The head of the data protection authority, Attila Péterfalvi, is in a position to establish whether putting the calculations under a confidentiality clause was unlawful or not, he said.
Párbeszéd board member Dávid Dorosz branded the concession tender as “the greatest theft of the past thirty years”, adding that it would drive up the price of motorway stickers while having a detrimental effect on the quality of roads.
Featured photo illustration by György Varga/MTI