Fidesz-KDNP members of the National Assembly, with the help of three independent MPs, voted in the law that transfers various state assets to “public interest asset management foundations,” removing the state’s oversight of hundreds of billions in public funds. The government’s official reasoning is to raise competitiveness and efficiency. However, the move raises a great deal of concerns as many fear Fidesz and Orbán want to put hands on state assets and build a deep state in an aim to keep wealth and influence for a long time, in addition to extending their ideological influence.
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The opposition LMP on Wednesday accused the Orbán government of building parallel power structures by “outsourcing decision making and a substantial amount of public funds, and explaining it with mendacious reasoning.”
László Lóránt Keresztes, the party’s parliamentary group leader, told an online press conference that many of the proposals submitted to this week’s parliamentary session aimed to create foundations that would handle monies outsourced from public funds, and which would be given the right to decision making so far preserved for the government.
Keresztes cited the setting up of the Supervising Authority of Regulated Activities as an example. Under the proposal to be discussed by parliament this week, the new authority would have oversight over the trade of tobacco products, judicial execution, the gambling industry, the regulation of absolvent companies, and other areas traditionally under the purview of the justice, finance and economy ministries, Kereszt