The trips of Viktor Orbán and his delegation abroad cost €1.34 million

Between January 2022 and June 2023, Viktor Orbán made 51 official visits abroad, 18 of which were on the Airbus A319 special aircraft purchased by the Hungarian Defence Forces. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, including per diem, accommodation and travel expenses

approximately HUF 502 million (€1.34 million) was spent on a total of 51 trips. Of this, HUF 395 million (€1.05 million) was spent on accommodation, HUF 14 million (€37,000) on per diem and HUF 93 million (€247,610) on travel expenses

– Rtl.hu reported.

As the aggregated data doesn't reveal the price spent on the Hungarian Prime Minister's lodging during his trips or the amount of per diems he charged, Rtl.hu contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The ministry, however, refused to provide details of the costs, which would be important because it has been suggested on several occasions that the Prime Minister's delegation had rented expensive accommodation in luxury conditions. For example, last January, during a trip to Paris, accommodation for the seven-member delegation was charged at 5.2 million forints (€13,844), which amounts to almost 750,000 forints (€1997) per person.

With the bulk costs, the ministry is also covering up the cost of Viktor Orbán's detour to Pisa. In March, the Hungarian Prime Minister paid an official visit to Cairo, then flew to Pisa instead of Budapest on a military plane, where he disembarked and later appeared on the streets of Florence and Venice in the company of his wife, Anikó Lévai. According to opposition MP Ákos Hadházy, this private programme cost the taxpayers a minimum of 3-4 million forints, which is why he filed a complaint, but the Budapest Regional Investigating Prosecutor's Court recently suspended the investigation into Orbán's Pisa excursion.