Grants for Luxury

In the first part of our series, we looked at the most interesting investment: a company owned by Attila Balázs, one of the up-and-coming Orban oligarchs, has received 2.4 billion forints, 7.5 million euros, to build a six-star luxury hotel. In a village in Harghita County, Gyergyóremete/Remetea, where there is hardly any tourism: even on the Booking.com accommodation portal there are only two places, a small pension and an apartment for rent.

The luxury hotel will be run (and subsidised) by a company whose main activity is beef semen production and breeding bulls. A private airstrip has already been built next to the hotel and will be used exclusively by the oligarch. Although the hotel was due to be handed over at the end of 2022 according to the grant application, it is still far from completion. All the indications are that the whole project was designed to give the Orban regime's private jet rich a place to hide from the world.