Former MEP Vlad Gheorghe and honorary advisor to Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan has asked Peter Magyar to investigate whether money sent from the Hungarian government to Romania were used for Viktor Orban propaganda.
The money was earmarked as “investments” for Hungarian communities in Romania but there are “serious suspicions” the funds did not reach the intended people.
There are about 1.2 million ethnic Hungarians living in Romania, most of them in the northwest Transylvania region which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1920.
“I sent a letter to Peter Magyar asking him to investigate the public money sent from the Hungarian budget to Romania, in the name of “investments” for Hungarian communities,” said Gheorghe adding there were “serious suspicions that a part of these funds did not reach the people, but fed networks of political influence and pro-Viktor Orbán propaganda,” Gheorghe said on Tuesday.
He said Romania was concerned that the money was used for “political influence built with public money….on Romanian territory.”
“We will prosecute all those who robbed the state and we will hold them accountable,” he said.
“We asked the prime minister-elect to check how the money was spent; to identify the beneficiaries and to follow the networks created by the old regime. There should be cooperation with the Romanian and European authorities. These financial flows must be thoroughly investigated.
“ Cleaning up this system is not just Hungary’s problem. It is a European problem”, emphasizes Vlad Gheorghe.
Here are excerpts from the open letter sent to Magyar.
“Your electoral victory marks not only a change of government, but, as you said, a change of regime. The firm commitment to hold accountable those who “looted, betrayed and ruined” Hungary and to build a state based on integrity, transparency and the rule of law provides a historic opportunity to clean up the public system and reconnect Hungary to European values.”
In this context, I respectfully ask you to extend this investigation to the financial flows that have gone beyond Hungary’s borders, in particular to the significant amounts coming from the Hungarian state budget and directed to Romania, in the name of investments in Hungarian communities.
In the spirit of your promises to create asset recovery mechanisms and to investigate the misuse of public funds, including through European cooperation and membership of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, I believe that these external financial flows must be analysed with the same rigor.”
I respectfully ask you the following:
– to investigate the way Hungarian public funds directed to the communities in Romania were spent;
– to identify the networks of influence and the real beneficiaries of these funds;
– to analyze the use of public money for political propaganda purposes;
– to trace the financial threads that lead to the structures associated with the former Orbán regime;
– to cooperate with Romanian and European authorities to ensure transparency and accountability of those involved.
“The tentacles of the old regime must be brought to the surface.”
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