This week’s contenders: memorial to a dead village complete with a 4D cinema for 2 million euros, a bunch of logs on a plain field for 10 thousand euros, and an infinite energy machine for the insubstantial sum of 1.6 million euros. The squandering of EU money on futile, overpriced projects has a long and well-documented history. Let’s amuse ourselves at least.

Hungary has already spent EU funds on:

• a 40-centimeter tall lookout tower in the tiny village of Bodrogkeresztúr (330 000 euros),

Bodrogkeresztúr lookout tower. EUR 110 000 (Photo: Index.hu)

• a bicycle rack that looks like a bunch of logs for the uninitiated in Várgesztes (10 000 euros),

“Bycicle rack” in Várgesztes. 10 000 euros. Photo: Index.hu

• and a 4D cinema with only 9 seats in the beautiful hamlet of Nagygéc (2 million euros)

9-seated 4D cinema for the 10 residents of Nagygéc for nearly 2 million euros of EU funds. Photo: Átlátszó.hu

But worry not, Nagygéc only has 10 registered residents, and one of them will surely volunteer to share a seat if the need ever strikes. CORRECTION: Nagygéc has only 6 inhabitants so they will be comfy in the 9-seated cinema.

But of course, Nagygéc didn’t just receive a cinema for all that money. They also have this memorial park commemorating the “communist village-destruction” that didn’t happen. Because no one destroyed any village here. In 1970 a flood destroyed the village* and even the knuckle-headed communist central planners refused to put too much effort into rebuilding it.

Let’s just taste this sentence again: The communist authorities refused to waste money…

Nagygéc also received a memorial for all that money

Fast forward 46 years and we have EU development money giving Nagygéc not only an ugly memorial and a 4D cinema – but a Church of Survival.

Photo: Átlátszó.hu

The above cases of theft didn’t all occur under the Orbán-government. EU-money used to be dumb and without an owner long before that.

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