Although Remetea has only six thousand inhabitants, several factories have been established there and a private airport has recently been built. Several guesthouses have opened, and work has begun on a five-star hotel.
The investments are linked to Attila Balázs, a businessman who started out as a manual labourer in this village before founding his first company in Hungary. He is now one of the country's top billionaires. He is often associated with István Tiborcz, Viktor Orbán's son-in-law. The local patriotism of the millionaire businessman probably spurred him to invest in his Romanian hometown, but he was fortunate to be able to combine this with the subsidies announced by the Hungarian government, some of which ended up in his portfolio in a completely opaque way.
Work on these factories was still well underway during the investigation, with the sites expected to be operational by 2024 at the earliest. However, the impact of these large-scale investments does not yet seem to be bringing about significant changes to the region or its population. Remetea has always been known as a village where men travel to work in faraway places. Surveys show that this situation is not likely to change in the near future.
Photo by Helga Toth/Transtelex
