Integrity Authority unable to perform task it was set up for, its president says

The Integrity Authority (IA) is unable to perform the task it was established for, namely to detect, prevent and investigate the irregular use of EU funds in Hungary, Ferenc Biró, its president has said, according to Népszava. The president of the organization presented the annual report of the IA in Brussels on Thursday.

He said that the authority lacks the powers necessary for effective operation, including the authority to uncover high-level corruption, which is why they have proposed legislative changes to the lawmakers. The proposed changes would give them more jurisdiction, make their recommendations issued after investigations binding and provide them with access to relevant databases. Biró says that they have achieved significant results in spite of this, such as the overall cost of a project being halved as a result of their investigation.

The establishment of the Integrity Authority was one of the conditions within the framework which is partly blocking Hungary's access to EU funds. Bíró believes that the authority will be needed even after the Hungarian authorities have met all the requirements. “We want to contribute to a change of culture, to making accountability and transparency natural, and ensuring that even the intention of committing irregularities is not there.”

The president of the IA gave his first interview to Telex after having been selected for the post, and we wrote about the organisation's duties and powers in this article.