PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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Most importantly, the Széchenyi Plan completely redefined the role of the state
and other players in expressway development. The Plan directly critiqued the previous
government’s concession-oriented approach as “extremely costly both for the state and
motorists.” However, instead of using the opportunity to open a debate over more
socially just, economically acceptable, and financially viable (i.e. “sustainable”) ways of
approaching the expansion of the national highway network, the new Orbán government
did exactly the opposite. Echoing the protectionist, and in part nationalist, interests
represented by the various coalition parties, the Széchenyi Plan argued that the previous
concessional solution had resulted in an unfavorable situation where foreign companies
dominated the expressway construction market and that priorities therefore had to be
arranged according to the following four goals:
to build expressways faster and at a smaller investment cost than before;
to make the use of expressways financially viable for motorists;
to allow Hungarian financial institutions and personal savings to play a greater role in
financing the developments;
and to allow Hungarian road companies to play a greater role in the execution of
developments
(GM 2000).
What followed in the next two years, however, was neither cost and time efficient
nor in sync with “market economic footing” but essentially a corruption scandal which is
only now being investigated in detail. Following the publication of the Széchenyi Plan,
the National Motorway Company Nemzeti Autópálya Rt. (NA), founded by the new
government in 1999 via Government decision 2117/1999 and 99% owned by the stateowned
Hungarian Development Bank, ignored all rules of public procurement legally
required both according to EU and Hungarian law. No tenders were called for the