Part I — Situation overview

On 26 October 2026 the Ministry of Finance (PM) filed a criminal complaint over the trips of Márton Nagy, former Minister for National Economy, and over the foreign missions of the ministerial delegations of the Ministry for National Economy (NGM). According to Finance Minister András Kármán, the ministry sees a well-founded suspicion of breach of trust, budget fraud and acceptance of bribes in office, and estimates the damage at over HUF 100 million. Whether an investigation is ordered is for the investigating authority to decide. Nikoletta Boda, the PM’s parliamentary state secretary, had earlier given concrete examples from the internal review. A trip to Brussels by chartered aircraft cost HUF 12.5 million, and the delegation also covered the 88-kilometre Brussels–Bruges distance by chartered aircraft. For a Council meeting in January, two nights were booked for nearly one million forints, but the minister travelled home before the meeting. Telex contacted Márton Nagy; no reply had arrived by the time the article was published.

On 27 October, following a freedom-of-information request by 24.hu, it also emerged that between 2022 and 2026 former defence minister Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky used the Hungarian Defence Forces’ aircraft on 77 official trips at a cost of HUF 794 million. Of this, HUF 463 million was airport handling. A day earlier, 24.hu, after litigating all the way to the Kúria (Supreme Court), obtained 19 contracts concerning the official villa used by former Chief of General Staff Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi. HM EI Zrt., the asset management company of the Ministry of Defence, spent a further HUF 640 million on a house that was 75–80 per cent complete. Meanwhile the prosecution moved to extend the pre-trial detention of Balázs Hankó, former Minister of Culture and Innovation, by three months; the court will decide on this.

The three cases differ in subject matter and legal status, but what they have in common is the lack of publicity. There is no proactive, itemised state disclosure of the costs of ministerial trips, special aircraft and official properties. What is known today was obtained by journalists through litigation, after the fact and piece by piece. In MIAK’s reading, this is not a moral question for a single government but a regulatory gap. As long as the decision rests entirely on discretion and is not visible even afterwards, the risk of overspending is reproduced in every term.

Part II — Grounding in the literature

Three sources provide a framework for interpreting the topic. According to the formula in Controlling Corruption by Robert Klitgaard (American economist, one of the founders of corruption research), abuse flourishes where a monopoly position and discretion meet an absence of accountability (C = M + D − A). Ministerial travel is exactly such an area: the minister decides on the mode of transport and the accommodation, and afterwards no one sees the decision. According to Klitgaard, the chance of detection is provided by an information system that preserves the trace of every transaction. Susan Rose-Ackerman (American lawyer-economist, leading researcher of the political economy of corruption) warns in Corruption and Government that freedom of information is worth little if the state does not even collect the data. She also points out that an organisation’s self-monitoring is inherently suspect, because disclosure harms the organisation itself. The memoir From Third World to First by Lee Kuan Yew (founding prime minister of Singapore) describes how elected governments tend to package ministerial remuneration into hidden perks (housing, car, travel). He himself made a virtue of arriving by scheduled flight. The detailed discussion of the literature — author by author, with quotations — can be found in section 6.4 Literature in detail.

Part III — MIAK’s concrete proposal

MIAK proposes three measurable steps. All three look forward: in cases already under way, the investigating authority, the prosecution and the courts decide, and the proposals aim to ensure that in future such spending cannot remain hidden.

3.1 A mandatory, machine-readable travel register (bill by 31 December 2026, first publication by 30 April 2027)

A uniform register should be kept of every foreign trip by ministers, state secretaries, the Prime Minister, the President of the Republic, the Chief of General Staff and ministerial delegations. Its content per trip: date, destination country and city, official programme, size of the delegation, mode of transport (scheduled flight, chartered aircraft, military aircraft), nightly price of accommodation, per diems and total cost. The data should appear within 30 days, in machine-readable form, on a central platform. A government decree cannot bind the Office of the President of the Republic, so the rule must be laid down at the level of an act. Extending the mandatory publication list of data of public interest is suitable for this; the act is adopted by the National Assembly. The rule should apply to members of the government in office in the same way as to their predecessors. According to Magyar Nemzet, the Sándor Palace has not yet disclosed the costs of President András Baka’s September trip to New York, citing delays in the settlement of accounts; a public deadline would settle this dispute too. Retroactively, an aggregate inventory should be prepared for the term starting in May 2022, so that the time series is comparable. According to Rose-Ackerman’s thesis (see 6.4.2), freedom-of-information requests are only effective if the state collects the data in an orderly way in the first place. The proposal extends programme point A1, the public-money dashboard, to ministerial spending.

3.2 A travel cost rule: scheduled flights as the default, an accommodation ceiling, special aircraft only with justification (government decree by 31 March 2027, first annual report by 31 May 2027)

The uniform official travel regulation should state that the default is a scheduled flight and a pre-set accommodation price ceiling. A chartered or military aircraft should be usable only with a written justification: a security reason, time pressure or a missing scheduled connection. The justification should be accompanied by a prior cost comparison with the scheduled alternative, and the smaller aircraft should be the preferred solution. The comparison should also include the cost of the aircraft’s flights from and back to its base. According to 24.hu’s data, Szalay-Bobrovniczky used the 140-seat Airbus A319 troop transport on 51 of his trips, and the 12–16-seat Falcon aircraft only 26 times. The aircraft typically flew from Kecskemét to Budapest to pick up the delegation. Exceeding the accommodation ceiling should be possible only with a justification, showing the extra cost. The Ministry of Defence should report annually to the National Assembly’s Defence Committee on the use of military air transport for senior officials. A summary should also be published for the public: number of trips, aircraft type, cost, and within that ground handling. What cannot be made public for security reasons should be reviewed by the committee in a closed session. In Klitgaard’s framework (see 6.4.1), this narrows discretion (D) and increases accountability (A). The proposal builds on programme points HV2, transparency of defence spending, and KI8, efficiency measurement.

3.3 Official properties and contracts of background companies: a public inventory and a utilisation decision (within 90 days)

According to HVG, the former Chief of General Staff used the villa in Dunakeszi for barely four months in early 2023; since then it has stood empty for three and a half years, and its upkeep costs HUF 370,000 a month on average. MIAK proposes that within 90 days the ministries and their background companies publish an inventory of their official properties: without address-level identification, but with function, value, occupancy and annual upkeep cost. Where a property has been empty for more than 12 months, a justified utilisation or sale decision should be mandatory. The second element is the ground handling of military aircraft. According to 444.hu, its cost for Szalay-Bobrovniczky’s trips was HUF 26 million in 2022 and HUF 189 million in 2025, after the task was outsourced through a HUF 7.3 billion public procurement. According to the papers, the owner of the subcontractor company headed the aviation division of HM EI when the tender was issued. He stated that his employment had ended six months before the contract, and that the cost increase is explained by more transparent data recording. Whether any law was broken is not for the public to decide. The ministry has indicated that a review of the background institutions is under way. MIAK asks that the unit prices of the contract and the amounts drawn down be published, and that the unit cost be compared with the ministry’s own operation before 2023. The proposal builds on programme point A2, public procurement transparency.

The three proposals are linked by one principle: public spending should become visible not through criminal complaints and data lawsuits, but routinely, according to a rule fixed in advance. Lee Kuan Yew’s experience (see 6.4.3) shows that the example of frugality at the top is credible when remuneration is visible rather than living on in hidden perks.

Part IV — Expected impacts and risks

Dimension Expected impact Risk
Economy Lower travel and air transport costs; the unit cost of ground handling becomes comparable Setting up and maintaining the register involves administrative costs
Society Trust grows if every government applies the same standard If the rule only “goes live” for predecessors, it may look like political revenge
Public administration A uniform official travel regulation, decision criteria known in advance The cost comparison may become formal paperwork if no one checks it
Defence The cost of air transport for senior officials comes under parliamentary control Premature disclosure of data that must be protected for security reasons (route, timing)

The main question to weigh is the relationship between publicity and security. Disclosing the date and route of a ministerial trip afterwards, after 30 days, poses no security risk, but disclosing it in advance does. The proposal therefore prescribes ex-post publication and allows a closed committee review for defence data. The other risk is symbolic excess: if the accommodation ceiling is set unrealistically low, the conditions for negotiating work may deteriorate. The ceiling must therefore be adjusted to the market price level of the city in question, and it must be possible to exceed it where justified. The proposal works if someone also analyses the data regularly; the audits of the State Audit Office (ÁSZ) and civil data users can both play a role in this. The ÁSZ makes findings and prepares reports; on the consequences, the National Assembly decides, or, where a crime is suspected, the prosecution and the courts.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth tracking? (proposed KPIs)

MIAK proposes tracking the following key performance indicators (KPIs):

  • Disclosure rate: for what percentage of foreign trips by ministers and state secretaries a full data set appears within 30 days; proposed target 100% by the end of 2027.
  • Special-aircraft rate: the share of senior officials’ trips made by chartered or military aircraft among all foreign trips, and for what percentage of these there is a written justification and cost comparison; proposed target for justifications 100%.
  • Unit cost of ground handling: the per-flight handling cost of senior officials’ military flights compared with the 2022 level, published annually.
  • Empty official properties: the number of properties that have stood empty for more than 12 months without a utilisation decision; proposed target zero by the end of 2027.

5.2 Summary

MIAK’s key message: in the cases of former ministers, responsibility is decided by the investigating authority, the prosecution and the courts, and communication must respect this. MIAK asks the government and the National Assembly to launch, this year, a travel register at the level of an act and a uniform official travel rule, and that these apply to the government in office as well. The foundational values concerned are transparency and accountability: transparency because today the data can only be obtained through lawsuits, and accountability because without a rule there is nothing to measure the spending against. Holding to account is credible when it is not about punishing predecessors but about applying the same standard to everyone.

Part VI — Justifications and further sources

6.1 Press framing by spectrum

Left-liberal band (Telex, 444.hu, HVG). 444.hu put the word “luxury trips” in its headline and, building on its own earlier freedom-of-information requests, emphasised the pattern of private jets and presidential suites. HVG focused on András Kármán’s statement and Nikoletta Boda’s concrete examples, and in its article on the military aircraft it put the contrast between the troop transport and the nearby destinations (Belgrade) at the centre. Telex also noted how terse the complaint was, and recorded that it had contacted Márton Nagy. 444.hu presented the villa case in a “gross overpricing” frame, HVG as a contradiction between the level of completion and the amount paid.

Mainstream band (24.hu, Index, ATV). 24.hu put its own data lawsuits and freedom-of-information requests in the foreground: the hotel bookings, the disclosure by the Dezső Szentgyörgyi Air Brigade and the release of contracts fought all the way to the Kúria. Index reported matter-of-factly, concentrating on the course of the internal review. ATV published a short report based on news agency material.

Economic band (Portfolio). Portfolio explained the legal classification: under the Criminal Code, damage over HUF 100 million corresponds to a particularly substantial financial loss. It also touched on the former minister’s current employment abroad.

Conservative band (Magyar Nemzet). Magyar Nemzet did not run the Márton Nagy case on its front page. It reported the extension of Balázs Hankó’s detention under a “he may spend Christmas in prison” frame, and in a separate article scrutinised the estimated cost, some twenty million forints, of President András Baka’s trip to New York. This symmetry frame — the spending of the new public-law leaders must also be examined — reinforces MIAK’s proposal 3.1. That day’s material from Mandiner and Népszava was not included in MIAK’s press monitoring.

6.2 Facts and data

Case Data Source
Márton Nagy’s trips (2023–2026) 51 cities in 32 countries; accommodation for 115 nights abroad HUF 51.9 million, on average approx. HUF 451,000/night HVG, Portfolio (following a freedom-of-information request)
Márton Nagy’s trips (January 2023 – November 2024) 66 official trips, more than HUF 132 million, of which private jet over HUF 60 million 444.hu’s earlier freedom-of-information request
Brussels trip by chartered aircraft HUF 12.5 million (Brussels–Bruges, 88 km, also by chartered aircraft) PM parliamentary state secretary, Telex, HVG
PM criminal complaint suspicion of breach of trust, budget fraud, acceptance of bribes in office; estimated damage > HUF 100 million PM statement, 26 October 2026
Szalay-Bobrovniczky’s military flights (2022–2026) 77 trips, HUF 794 million; of which airport handling approx. HUF 463 million (nearly 60%) 24.hu freedom-of-information request (Dezső Szentgyörgyi Air Brigade)
Aircraft types Airbus A319 (140 people): 51 trips; Falcon (12–16 people): 26 trips 24.hu, HVG, 444.hu
Example trips Sarajevo HUF 23 million; Belgrade HUF 12 and 11 million; Brașov HUF 4.8 million 444.hu
Cost of ground handling for the trips 2022: HUF 26 million; 2025: HUF 189 million 444.hu
Completion of the official villa estimate HUF 250 million; actual HUF 640 million; completion level at purchase 75–80% 24.hu, HVG (19 contracts obtained through litigation)
Use of the villa January – May 2023; empty since then, upkeep on average HUF 370,000 a month HVG
Balázs Hankó the prosecution moved for a three-month extension of pre-trial detention Bács-Kiskun County Chief Prosecutor’s Office, Telex

The figures come from press sources, following freedom-of-information requests; no official, itemised state disclosure is available in any of the cases. This is precisely the reason for proposal 3.1.

6.3 Policy dimensions

  • Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points) — a public-money dashboard for ministerial spending, publication of public procurement unit prices, independent investigative capacity;
  • Defence (programme points) — transparency of air transport for senior officials and of the property management of background companies, the principle of “classification minimalism”;
  • Public administration and e-government (programme points) — a uniform official travel regulation, decisions based on cost comparison, efficiency measurement in the ministries.

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 Robert Klitgaard: Controlling Corruption

Klitgaard analyses corruption not as a moral failing but as an incentive structure. He summarises the conditions for abuse as follows: “monopoly plus discretion, and an absence of accountability”. Among the remedies, the book’s third chapter highlights information systems. In audit and management information systems, the transaction is the basic unit of examination. Abuse can be detected if the system leaves an audit trail, and it can even give automatic warning signals. The case of the Philippine tax authority shows that collecting information is itself a deterrent, because officials know that abuse will come to light. Applied to ministerial travel: discretion (which aircraft, which hotel) is not a problem in itself, but it is only acceptable if every decision leaves a trace and the trace is public.

📖 Source: Robert Klitgaard: Controlling Corruption

6.4.2 Susan Rose-Ackerman: Corruption and Government

Rose-Ackerman names information as the precondition for citizen oversight. In her view, financial data must be audited and published by an authority independent of the body under examination, because self-monitoring is inherently suspect: an organisation that uncovers the abuses of its own staff itself suffers damage. On freedom of information laws she writes: “a freedom of information act has little value if government does not gather much information”. As an example she cites Japanese local data disclosure ordinances: as a result of these, citizens and the press uncovered that central officials had been entertained with money from public works programmes. Subsequently 22 local governments cut such spending by at least 30 per cent. In the Hungarian situation, the current cases show the success of freedom-of-information requests, but also the limit of the system: what the state should routinely collect and disclose comes to light lawsuit by lawsuit, after the fact.

📖 Source: Susan Rose-Ackerman: Corruption and Government

6.4.3 Lee Kuan Yew: From Third World to First

Lee Kuan Yew writes that, for the sake of popularity, elected governments usually underpay ministers in their official salary, while the semi-hidden perks — housing, expense allowance, car, travel — are often worth more than the salary. He himself wanted to treat all remuneration as a lump-sum, visible item, and writes that he had no hidden perks. Speaking of international summits, he describes how the leaders of larger countries arrived in their own special aircraft, while he made a virtue of travelling by scheduled commercial flight. From the time his government took office, he sought to ensure that every dollar of revenue was accounted for, and paid particular attention to areas where discretionary power could be turned to personal gain. For the Hungarian debate, then, the problem is not the special aircraft and luxury accommodation in themselves, but that they function as hidden perks; proposal 3.2 makes them visible and subject to justification.

📖 Source: Lee Kuan Yew: From Third World to First

6.5 International comparison

United Kingdom. The British government publishes ministers’ foreign trips (destination, purpose of the trip, mode of transport, cost) and the use of special aircraft every quarter. The data set is also available in machine-readable form.

European Commission. The Commission regularly publishes the costs of Commissioners’ missions trip by trip, indicating the delegation and the mode of transport.

Singapore. According to Lee Kuan Yew’s account (see 6.4.3), the lump-sum, visible handling of remuneration and the example of frugality at the top were part of the credibility of the fight against corruption. Programme point A10 follows this model.

Japan. Rose-Ackerman’s example (see 6.4.2) shows that local data disclosure on its own measurably reduced spending on hospitality.

Transparency and anti-corruption policy

  • A1 — Public-money dashboard
  • A2 — Public procurement transparency
  • A10 — Independent Anti-Corruption Investigation Office

Defence

  • HV2 — Transparency of defence spending

Public administration and e-government

  • KI8 — Drucker-style efficiency measurement in public administration

Proposed new programme point: A uniform, public register of ministerial travel and official missions, with a scheduled-flight default rule and justification for special aircraft — for the Transparency and anti-corruption policy area.

6.7 List of sources

Press sources (MIAK press monitor, 27 October 2026 — topic 2):

Knowledge-base references (literature):

  • 📖 Robert Klitgaard: Controlling Corruption
  • 📖 Susan Rose-Ackerman: Corruption and Government
  • 📖 Lee Kuan Yew: From Third World to First

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Transparency and anti-corruption policy (programme points; programme point ID: A1, A2, A10)
  • MIAK policy area: Defence (programme points; programme point ID: HV2)
  • MIAK policy area: Public administration and e-government (programme points; programme point ID: KI8)
  • MIAK press monitor, 27 October 2026 — topic 2, score: 84/100

Supplementary public data sources (where used):

  • Ministry of Finance statement, 26 October 2026
  • Disclosure by the Dezső Szentgyörgyi Air Brigade (following 24.hu’s freedom-of-information request)

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