2023-07-07

GHEORGHENI - Nine 4-star hotels are being built in the Hungarian part of Romania. The Hungarian government is using public money for this. In total, Hungarian taxpayers have generously subsidised the construction of nine hotels, two of which will be opened in Mures district in the coming days.

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.

Team members

Lukács Csaba

Lukács Csaba is a Hunarian senior journalist and managing director at the Magyar Hang weekly.

Lukács Csaba

Zoltán Sipos

Zoltán Sipos is a Hungarian journalist living in Romania.

Zoltán Sipos
Media

Átlátszó Erdély Romania

Átlátszó Erdély is an investigative journalism project aiming to increase the transparency of the public life of the Hungarian community of Transylvania, Romania.

Magyar Hang

Magyar Hang is a civic, political-cultural weekly newspaper published in Hungary, founded in 2018 by former employees of the now defunct daily Magyar Nemzet.

Magyar Hang

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