A delegation of the EP Committee on Budgetary Control is now visiting Hungary, planning a trip to see the Felcsút miniature railway that has eaten of HUF 600 million. We have to recognize however, that this country can offer a lot more than just a ghost train in the Prime Minister’s village. Have you heard about the sledge hill on the Great Plains, the 11 lookout towers of a secluded village, the upside-down built region house or the Shrek-ranch – built for the reason ’ogre’ being a word of Hungarian origin? These investments have all been developed in Hungary with the approval of the EU tenderers and funded mostly by European taxpayers’ money. We have searched for the most defective touristic developments that make it obvious how it is possible to get hundreds of millions for misguided nonsense.

It is mainly politicians and local governments trying to break out from their isolated position who floundered these touristic investments funded by the EU. Out of the 43 stories we draw a colorful picture of cases such as private investments of decision makers; ill-judged and oversized developments as well as end-in-itself meaningless projects. Since the expansion of Lőrinc Mészáros we are aware of the fact that tourism is good business – but only EU funds cannot make a miracle. Guests will not stream without infrastructure conditions, attractions and a well-positioned offer. Examining the messed-up investments we realize that the developers are actually well aware of these facts. As far as it is possible there are hardly any developments that are useless but require huge resources which would be dangerous for the budget – the local municipalities are much more careful than that.

But if it is possible to get some easy funding then they will start to build playgrounds and look-out towers – these are the representative gifts of EU funds to small villages. They are not much appreciated, mainly if there are hardly anyone using them – by the end of the 5 years period, most of these investments disappear. Never mind, there will be a new one to come.

The next reason for maladministration is the capital shortage – we know that there are always ‘helpful’ consulting companies there to write the applications for financial compensation. Agro tourism can improve the territorial cohesion, that’s why they invest so much into it - and there are some good examples. But the structural problems cannot be solved this way. Since patriotism exists, local leaders want to show off – and they will always find politicians happy to assist. 

We could avoid meaningless investments but corruption cases cannot be avoided unfortunately. K-Monitor’s map does not attempt to show all the controversial investments – their aim is to share only the worst cases. 

The map was created as a project of K-Monitor – Watchdog for Public Funds, based on a database of more than 40.000 Hungarian articles about the use and misuse of the public money.