Hungarian government may buy Budapest Airport with French partner - Telex

The French company operates 65 airports in 13 countries around the world. According to the newsletter, the Hungarian government had originally considered non-EU partners - China, Qatar - but had to drop this under Western pressure.

According to Telex sources,

Vinci would be a minority shareholder alongside the Hungarian state, but would enter with financing above the ownership stake, in return for which it would be an operating partner and would be given management rights.

The purchase price is said not to be high, but the conversion of the loans would still leave buyers paying above industry standards, the paper says.

According to one source, a final commitment to buy the airport should be made in early December.

Background

In recent months, there seems to have been a change of direction in the previously estranged Hungarian-French political and economic relations, which is also linked to the shift away from the Germans. The government has signed a nuclear agreement with the French company Framatome, and the French company has become Hungary's friend in government communications, while German politicians and Siemens Energy have often been scolded by Péter Szijjártó, the Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. Meanwhile, in the energy sector, right-wing circles have started to cooperate with the French company Veolia, which has almost received its own renewable energy tender from the state. If we continue to contrast the French position with the Germans, the German E.ON is no enemy either, but it has not been given such a tail wind. And the latest news is that the German AviAlliance, one of the owners of Budapest Airport, has now received an offer from the Hungarian government and the French Vinci Airports.

French President Emmanuel Macron has previously had a bad relationship with Viktor Orban. And not without reason, MKB (now part of Hungarian Bankholding), a bank partly linked to pro-government oligarch Lőrinc Mészáros, also provided loans to Marine le Pen, Macron's far-right challenger.

Help from a French lady and a disastrous meeting

But they did manage to mend relations.The easing was helped by one of the big shots of French politics, Pascale Andréani, who worked for a time in Budapest. Andréani had previously represented France at the UN, the OECD and then as ambassador to NATO, before becoming France's ambassador to Budapest, and was very active. He has even written a book on Hungarian-French historical and cultural relations entitled "The ambassador's words" ["Le mot d'ambassadrice"].

After her period of service, she joined Framatome, where she was given the dedicated task of using her Hungarian knowledge to promote bilateral relations. However, as mentioned above, Hungarian-French relations were chilly, and just as Viktor Orbán openly supported Marine Le Pen, Emmanuel Macron did not deny that he sympathised with the Hungarian opposition.

Then, on 13 December 2021, Emmanuel Macron visited Budapest and met with several members of the Hungarian opposition, Klára Dobrev, Anna Donáth, Gergely Karácsony and Péter Márki-Zay. The French side saw this meeting as a clear failure, with Macron personally failing to make any progress and with no sense of governmental capacity in the team.

The experience would not have made Macron an instant friend of Fidesz, but the French government continued to lobby for more Paks contracts, and two months later, in a development that benefited France, after Russia attacked Ukraine, the Hungarian government suddenly had to look for new partners.

Energy

In building new relations with France, we must not forget energy, nor even the business circle of Árpád Habony, known as Viktor Orbán's shadow advisor. His circle of well-known backers has acquired a wide range of interests in France through a Maltese company, Apium Media Holding. Fact-finding portal Átlátszó wrote about this in more detail.

Among these, CHP-Erőmű Kft. stands out, which last year had a turnover of over HUF 68 billion and a pre-tax profit of over HUF 8.8 billion. In addition to the Hungarian group, the French Veolia is the main shareholder in the company operating the Budapest power plant. This in itself is an interesting and novel partnership, but according to a Telex source, Veolia's executives (György Palkó in Hungary and French regional boss Philippe Guitard in Prague) also played a role in smoothing the relationship, and in the fact that a very high-ranking French business delegation is arriving in Budapest at the end of September.

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