At the start of Friday morning's press conference, Péter Magyar remarked that public television was showing Kisváros instead of a live broadcast. Shortly afterwards, Dávid Vitézy was giving a presentation on a major Budapest project, the Southern Circular Railway, 444 reported.
According to the minister, the government is excluding V-Híd from all ongoing railway construction projects. The current construction phase of the Southern Circular Railway will be closed, the contract terminated, and the company told to leave the site.
## Construction is not even halfway done
The Southern Circular Railway is part of one of Europe’s rail corridors for freight transport. Vitézy called it a worthwhile investment, but said serious questions had arisen regarding the integrity of the public procurement process to date.
Construction hasn't even reached the halfway point yet, and there are at least two years of work left. Based on the decision just announced, the project will no longer be completed under the current contract: the government is preparing a new public procurement process.
Vitézy said he had been negotiating with the European Commission in recent weeks. In his view, a significant part of the EU money can be saved if the current construction contract is closed and the work is then re-tendered.
## The decision was preceded by an EU investigation
According to the EU findings presented by the minister, V-Híd may have gained a competitive advantage through its relationship with a design firm. The company later acquired that firm.
According to Vitézy, the European Court of Auditors' investigation found that V-Híd may have known the documents prepared by the designer, including the estimated value of the work, before the tender. In the EU's view, the company should therefore have been excluded from the procurement.
In January 2026, the Court of Auditors reported the results of its audit to the government in office at the time. Vitézy said that the explanations submitted in February were not found to be convincing, which is why the European Commission refused to maintain the grant agreement in September. As a result, the current project for the Southern Circular Railway has lost approximately 320 billion forints in EU funding.
## Advance payment, state guarantee and criminal complaints
One of the disputed issues of the coming weeks may be the 57-billion-forint advance payment. According to Vitézy, this amount has in principle not yet been used up, so it must be accounted for.
The matter is complicated by the fact that the state-owned Hungarian Development Bank provided a guarantee for the contract. The minister stated that if the state were to demand repayment and V-Híd failed to pay, the MFB would have to cover the cost. According to Vitézy, this in itself could raise suspicion of a criminal offense.
The minister announced that criminal complaints had been filed and estimated the damage to the Hungarian state at between 50 and 100 billion forints. He said the final amount would also depend on when and under what conditions a new public procurement process could be launched.
From a Budapest perspective, the tangible change at this point is that the construction of the Southern Circular Railway to date is coming to an end, and a new procedure is required to continue the project. The exact timeline for this was not disclosed at the press conference.
Source: 444
