Hungary's PM launches aggressive asset recovery campaign targeting oligarchs

Prime Minister Péter Magyar stood before the Hungarian public this week with a simple message: the money is coming back. In a Facebook post and accompanying video, he announced that his government had already recovered more than 100 billion forints—roughly 400 million dollars—in public assets, with the machinery of state recovery barely warming up. The National Asset Recovery and Asset Protection Agency, he said, was only just beginning its work.

The first major scalp came from Duna Aszfalt, a construction company with deep ties to László Szíjj, a businessman long associated with the previous government's inner circle. The company had been one of the largest beneficiaries of state contracts over the past fifteen years, winning more than 600 billion forints in public procurement deals between 2018 and 2020 alone. Szíjj's connections ran high enough that Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó had vacationed on his luxury yacht. But shortly after the Ministry of Economy and Energy filed a complaint in late July, Duna Aszfalt announced it would repay the 100-billion-forint sum it owed to state-owned banks—a striking reversal that Magyar presented as evidence that the recovery campaign was already bearing fruit.

The money in question traced back to one of the riskier bets the previous government had made. Two state banks, Exim and MFB, had subscribed to 126 billion forints in bonds issued by Duna Aszfalt to finance investments in Congo and Zambia—countries classified in the highest risk categories. The Hungarian state had guaranteed roughly 80 percent of the financing, meaning taxpayers were on the hook for most of the exposure. When Duna Aszfalt redeemed those bonds at face value, it eliminated that liability in one stroke.

But the Duna Aszfalt case is only the opening move in what Magyar framed as a comprehensive reckoning with the previous administration's financial legacy. The government has filed criminal complaints in more than twenty cases involving a total of 1.7 trillion forints—a sum so large it strains comprehension. The complaints span infrastructure projects like the M6 motorway and the Danube bridge at Mohács, foreign aid arrangements including a 360-billion-forint loan to North Macedonia, procurement scandals involving Egyptian railway carriages worth 640 billion forints, and a ventilator purchase scheme linked to Szijjártó's circle that cost 300 billion forints. The National Bureau of Investigation has already opened investigations in several of these matters.

Magyar's ambitions extend beyond criminal complaints. He announced that the government would systematically review all major corporate contracts, concessions, and state guarantees—particularly those benefiting what he called the oligarchs and political favorites of the previous era. This includes a comprehensive audit of the 4iG group, the Antenna Hungária company, the Vodafone acquisition, and transfers of defense industry assets. He also signaled that the government would reverse a controversial office deal in the Zugló district and would not occupy a headquarters linked to what he described as the Tiborcz business circle.

Perhaps most significantly, Magyar turned his attention to the kekva system—public-interest asset management foundations that the previous government had used to transfer more than 3 trillion forints in public assets into private-sector-like structures. These foundations, ostensibly created to serve the Hungarian people, had instead become vehicles for concentrating wealth and control. Magyar announced that non-educational foundations would have their assets reverted to the state by the end of August, with some recovery already underway.

The prime minister's message to those who had benefited from state largesse was blunt: return the money voluntarily now, or face legal recovery later. He acknowledged that the previous government's allies were fighting the new agency's establishment, but suggested their resistance was futile. Whatever was taken from the common wealth of Hungary, he said, would be reclaimed. The asset recovery campaign, he insisted, was not a political vendetta but the fulfillment of a core promise to the Hungarian people—to restore what had been taken from them.