After nearly 15 years of uncontested rule and exerting tight control over his country, Viktor Orban is now in an unprecedented position for the small nation of Hungary, wielding soft power internationally. One way this is happening is through a Hungarian bank, MBH Bank, granting loans to Orban’s international allies.
The bank provided a personal loan of $11.34 million to Marine Le Pen to help finance her 2022 presidential campaign for the National Rally (RN) party. The same bank later loaned $9.75 million, in two installments, to Spain’s far-right party Vox for municipal and legislative elections last year, as Santiago Abascal’s party admitted earlier this month.
The same Hungarian bank is also indirectly and in a more limited way benefiting Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ), led by Herbert Kickl, which won the legislative elections in late September. The FPÖ’s disinformation media platform Auf1, which operates on YouTube and Telegram, used an account opened at MBH Bank to collect donations, as its accounts were closed in Germany and Austria.
A “planned strategy”
The RN, Vox, and FPÖ – all three beneficiaries of these loans – were brought together by the Hungarian leader under the label “The Patriots” in Strasbourg after the European elections in June. “What seemed like a unique case in 2022 (with the loan to Le Pen) now looks like a planned strategy,” the economic newspaper HVG wrote. “The bank of Hungarian Lorinc Meszaros is financing the rise of the European far-right.”
The weekly now expects Matteo Salvini’s Lega, heavily indebted to the Italian state, to turn to the Hungarian leader for help. Salvini shared a stage with Orban at a rally on October 6 in Pontida, Italy.
Recently questioned by independent media, the Hungarian government claimed it had “no role” in the decision to finance Vox. This is hard to believe, as MBH Bank is a pure product of “Orbanism,” which involved nationalizing strategic sectors and fostering national champions after the 2008 subprime crisis. MBH Bank was created in 2023 through the merger of MKB, Budapest Bank, and Takarékbank, becoming the second-largest banking group in Hungary.
“Crony capitalism”
The state owns 30% of its shares, and its primary owner, 58-year-old Lorinc Meszaros, embodies the “crony capitalism” that emerged from this strategy. When his former schoolmate and childhood friend Orban came to power in 2010, Meszaros ran a gas heating installation business he had founded in 1990. Less than 15 years later, he has become Hungary’s richest person (with an estimated fortune of $2.65 this year), heading an industrial empire. “Thanks to God, luck, and Viktor Orban,” he admitted.
The mission of Meszaros, as well as a handful of other businessmen favored by the regime, is clear: to consolidate Orban’s power in Hungary and extend his influence abroad. Close allies of Fidesz have invested in media in Slovenia and North Macedonia, among other places.
Also, in the Balkans, the state-owned Eximbank supported Budapest’s nationalist allies. In 2022, it granted a very low-interest loan of $116.6 million to the Serbian entity of Bosnia-Herzegovina, led by Milorad Dodik, and this fall, $530 million to North Macedonia following the victory of the nationalist VMRO party. Orban continues to weave his web of influence.
Source link : https://international.la-croix.com/world/hungarys-viktor-orban-banker-of-europes-far-right-movements
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Publish date : 2024-10-17 10:32:00
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