Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has uncovered evidence that Austrian lobbyist Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly corrupted procurement procedures in Hungary through the Socialist Party in connection with the procurement and upgrade of Gripen fighter jets manufactured by Sweden’s Saab and British Aerospace, the Austrian weekly Format reports.
Socialist Party spokesman István Nyakó rejected the claim. The Format website said it had obtained a 30-page document dated July 25, 2008 sent by the SFO to the Austrian Interior Ministry.
According to the weekly, the document states that the SFO has “thorough cause to suspect” that British Aerospace has corrupted procurement procedures in Hungary and the Czech Republic through Mensdorff-Pouilly. The businessman is already under investigation in Austria on suspicion of fraud, bribery and money-laundering.
British Aerospace allegedly made €107.6 million available to Mensdorff-Pouilly for payments to third parties, which payments were corruption-related, according to the British report.
A corrupt businessman, in Hungary …. how strange !
A corrupt corporation,in Britain….how strange !
@ALL
Corruption isn’t parculiar to ‘Only’ Hungary..
It’s just that these people get ‘Caught’ in other countries and don’t get to be High-Ranking Political Figures or Prime Minister..
That IS something parculiar to ‘Only’ Hungary!!
Bacsi. Your right about these people getting caught – as you go eastward though the corruption is even more rife, but is called “patronage.”.
The issues to discuss are:-
Whether those caught are tried and if convicted, go to jail.
Does this not reinforce the belief that doing business in this part of the world requires additional “greasing” of the wheels and whether that attracts or detracts investment from those with whom one would want investing here?
@Rolrox
The statistics bear out that in Hungary the number of people actually caught and convicted of such criminal acts as we’re discussing, sadly doesn’t reflect anything like the true scale of the problem…
Hungary by its own Actions & In-actions has created and perpetuated the ‘Perfect’ Environment for this kind of High-Level Criminality to exist..
Also the Justice System (I use the term very loosely!) has by ‘Choice’ made the penalies for such crimes very slight indeed?
When the Punishments so slearly don’t fit the Crimes… Well the Results are plain for everyone to see..
In fact most Hungarians don’t see Tax Evasion, Vat Fraud and embezzlement as crimes at all?? This being the accepted norm, allows almost all of these crimes to go undetected.
I have just has some personal exposure the Hungarian Court/Justice system and it is 100% clear that In Hungary you can ‘Buy’ the exct amount of Justice that your Bank balance will allow!! The stuff od ‘Indictment’ elswhere!!!..
The scale of the problem mirrors that which afflicts Hungarys politcal system. The remedy for which will be both Painful and Internationally Embarassing but needed none the less.
The much needed foriegn finance will avoid Hungary if it cannot demostrate that it is taking steps to clamp down on this matter.
Understanding that there IS a NEED for Change?
Would be an Excellent Starting Point!!!!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/07/bae1
Rather unlikely that reasonably high standing officials/politicians would have not been involved under protection of Mr Prime Minister
???
What exactly is comparison you’re attempting (very badly) to Make?
It is well documented that the deal was approved at
the very top of the then Hungarian govt.
and was later extended by the following administration.The question will it ever be
uncovered who received how much and where the
dough went to?I don’t think so at least not as
long as those officials reside and “serve their
country”in central-eastern europe.
I hope the far right “jobbik” will go after them
on this issue.(btw:I do not support jobbik)
As Stogie did not make totally clear that Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly has obviously had very good connections to both sides of the aisle, as both a MSZP Government and a Fidesz Government made big Gripen deals.
Fidesz of course cries that they are totally honest and only MSZP is corrupt.
Jobbik want to be part of a corrupt Fidesz Government?
That is what they are dreaming of, to snatch the role as Parliamentarian King-makers in the next Parliament from the claws of SZDSZ. A much bigger influence in respect to their actual voter-support.
And we all know which corrupt Politicians they will support.
So what is new?
So who would be your choice, Viking? You are terrified of FIDESZ and Jobbik, what is it you want? MSZP, SZDSZ and MDF have a well proven track record, these crooks must go. We are waiting for you to show us the way.
Under the Putin-years (2000–2008) increased corruption between 7 and 10 times.
Putin has never been interested in changing this development and this despite he threw out ‘all jewish oligarchs’.
IKEA is thinking of stopping its expansion in Russia due to the big corruption there. They have had extreme problems in Samara, which is regarded as one of the most corrupt cities in Russia by foreign investors.
IKEA has always made a thing about that they never pay bribes and they have several shops in Hungary.
Putin is the World Leader Jobbik looks up to.
Makes you wonder what type of society Jobbik really wants?
And what the difference really is?
Sounds more like the old, but just with new faces.
And maybe without IKEA-shops, for no other reason than just being an indicator on how rampant the corruption is.
To answer Godot’s question – I do not see any clear answer in Hungarian politics today, but maybe something good can come out of a totally new centre party taking members/voters from MSZP, MDF, SZDSZ and Fidesz. The problem in Hungarian politics of today is that there is no strong centre force dedicated to normal European values. MDF is the closest to that, but they are locked into a battle with Orban that makes it hard to solve. MDF in the beginning of the 90s is not today’s MDF. Many of the bad people went to MIEP and Fidesz, either for ideology or a better chance to earn money.
Either a new party or build something around the current MDF.
@Viking
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxFpKFXbOpo
Knowing,
Of course to become a person to aka as an ‘oligarch’ you cannot have been politically, morally and legally correct. That is the simple truth. The same happened in the US 100-150 years ago.
The Russian angle on this is that Put in only cracked down on the ‘oligarchs’ who dared to challenge him. The other ones are having a good time, as long as they do not cross Put in and deliver the normal contribution to that small account in Switzerland.
Put in is more and more regarded as the richest man at least in Europe, even if he does not display his wealth and does not like to speak about it.
That is who your Great Leader really is.
In a few years when Put in has total control over the energy supplies to Europe, you may use those portraits of him to warm your flat.
Who do you think are opposing that Europe develop more independent and sustainable energy?
So, if you are against Put in’s dominance, set up solar panels and wind propellers.
Russian living standards had plunged after the collapse of the Soviet Union and started to gradually recover since 2000. In 2007 the living standards recovered to the level of 90 and continue to improve as Russia closes the gap with developed countries. Many attribute this spectacular recover to petrodollars which of course is true. It is not often mentioned in the West that it failed to finance structural reforms during the 90s. The West, of course, did not have to.
Grim Reaper,
True about the living standard, but I think it would have been a bit blue-eyed to think that Soviet/Russia could go from a Communist Dictatorship to the most nicest Democratic Nation in the world.
These things are messy, especial the time after any ‘revolution/system-change’ is normally the time when people suffer the most, while things get stable. A lot of things come out of the old wood-work and a lot of new adventurers chip in, not all with very noble motives.
Russia today is more and more becoming the Mafia-State, run by the old KGB-elite that survived. They managed to stay in the wood-work.
The real challenge to Put in is coming now, with the financial crisis. It hits Russia hard and they have not so many other big incomes than selling different forms of energy.
They are trying to reform the enormous Army apparatus, but they meet a lot of resistance here. Russia have the same basic problem as Hungary, a too big State overhead.