The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) on Wednesday urged the European Commission to recover nearly 11 million euros of European funds that Hungary used to finance a regional waste management system that, far from having a positive impact on the environment, led to serious problems, including fires and dangerous emissions.
The European anti-fraud agency’s wake-up call comes in the midst of a debate within the EU over the freezing of funds to Viktor Orban’s government over problems of fraud and corruption with the use of EU resources, a matter for which Brussels proposed freezing up to 7.5 billion euros in regional funds.
The decision, which falls on the 27, is on hold while waiting for the community services to re-evaluate whether Budapest has complied with the reforms it promised to avoid this sanction, since the country’s authorities had until November 19 to approve and implement the necessary legislative changes.
In any case, the irregularities detected in the investigation by the European anti-fraud agency point to problems in four projects developed over several years, from «planning and design errors» to non-compliance with the established efficiency and environmental protection objectives.
«Problems with the projects led to several fires, with dangerous emissions and a very negative impact on air quality, as well as a terrible smell that has been a nuisance for the inhabitants of the surrounding municipalities for years,» OLAF’s director general, Ville Itälä, said in a statement.
According to European experts, the projects included the installation of a mechanical-biological waste treatment unit for the production of biofuels, which would then be sold for energy production.
However, due to the poor quality of the fuels much of the production did not find an outlet after treatment and remained in the waste management plant, which later led to two serious fires, the first of which destroyed the EU-funded infrastructure, although the operator later rebuilt it at its own expense.
Another irregularity points to the fact that after the fires and other frequent breakdowns of the available technology led to the destruction of large quantities of biological waste in the same repository without having been previously treated accordingly.
OLAF’s analysis also indicates that there were social demonstrations protesting the incidents to the point that the project manager finally decided not to use the treatment plant any more and chose to transport about 60% of the communal waste to another location, contrary to the project’s objectives.
