Although Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo has long been a harsh critic of the Hungarian government’s policies, he unknowingly did a small favor for Viktor Orbán’s family during the EU leaders’ summit in Budapest last November.

The Finnish delegation stayed at Hotel Dorothea, owned by István Tiborcz, the son-in-law of the Hungarian Prime Minister, where they paid €2,800 for a single night. The Finns ended up at this hotel despite having originally booked rooms at another hotel but were eventually redirected to Dorothea by the Hungarian organizers.

Last year’s EU summit in Budapest on 7-8 November was the most important event of the Hungarian EU Presidency, with delegations from more than 40 countries arriving in the Hungarian capital. Direkt36 previously reported that the Hungarian EU Presidency had recommended a total of five hotels to guests arriving for the summit, including Hotel Dorothea in downtown Budapest, owned by István Tiborcz. The Hungarian EU Presidency particularly promoted this hotel to the delegations, telling them that the hotel offered very attractive deals.

It is not known how many of the delegations that arrived for the summit ended up staying at Dorothea, but the Finnish Prime Minister and his entourage were certainly among them. Direkt36 found out about this by asking the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat to submit a public information request about where the Finnish delegation stayed during the summit and how much they paid. In response, the Finnish Prime Minister’s Office provided several details about the booking of the Finnish delegation.

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Their response revealed that the Finnish accommodation was booked with the help of the Hungarian EU Presidency. The Finns had initially booked accommodation in one of the five hotels proposed by the EU Presidency, the cost of which had been paid in advance.

The Finnish government did not name the hotel concerned, but Direkt36 has learned from a Finnish source who asked not to be named that the hotel was the Ritz-Carlton Budapest, which is linked to one of the world’s richest men, Khalaf al-Habtoor of Dubai. (Since January, the Ritz-Carlton has been called Al Habtoor Palace Budapest.)

According to the Finnish government’s reply, the Hungarian side later informed them that the hotel they had originally chosen was full due to ‘overbooking’. The Finnish delegation was then offered accommodation at the Dorothea. ‘Hotel Dorothea was also among the hotels recommended by the Secretariat, and the reservation was made based on availability,’ the Finns wrote about what the Hungarian organizers had communicated to them.

This is how Prime Minister Orpo and his seven advisers ended up at Tiborcz’s hotel, where a single night for the delegation cost €2,800.

The Finns have said that this amount included the cost of security for the Prime Minister, the details of which are confidential. It is therefore not possible to say exactly how many people in total were covered by this amount. (According to booking.com, the cheapest room at Dorothea currently costs more than €234. For this price, guests get a double room with a view of the street, and breakfast costs an additional €37.)

Services of an intermediary

The Finnish government not only disclosed the amount of the reservations, they also sent the invoices. These were not issued by the hotels concerned but by a Hungarian company named Jet Travel Ltd. According to the Finnish reply, this travel agency handled the bookings on the basis of instructions from the Hungarian EU Presidency.

In response to Direkt36’s inquiry, Jet Travel wrote that the company was “involved as a subcontractor in the management of the event’s accommodation contingents”. In response to our questions about the accommodation of Finns, they said they could not provide any substantive answers.

The majority owner and one of the managing directors of Jet Travel is Zoltán Gál Pál, the brother of Levente András Gál, former state secretary of the Orbán government. Zoltán Gál Pál bought into Jet Travel before his brother’s government career took off.

András Levente Gál started working at the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice (KIM), the top ministry headed by Tibor Navracsics, after Orbán’s party returned to power in 2010. He held an important position as State Secretary for Public Administration at the KIM. He practically directed the State Secretaries for Administration of the other ministries and thus had an overview of the whole legislative preparatory activity of the government. He was dismissed from his post in 2011 due to various conflicts, became a government commissioner but later resigned and was also president of the Hungarian sailing federation.

Jet Travel is one of the five companies with which the government has signed multi-billion HUF framework agreements for international travel in 2019 and 2024.  In practice, this meant that if a ministry or a state-owned company under it needed help organizing a trip abroad, it would only put these five companies in competition with each other. The selected company would then assist the government departments with matters such as airline and hotel reservations, visa arrangements, conference registration, etc.

They continue to recommend Dorothea

The government continues using Jet Travel’s services after the end of its six-month EU Presidency, now in connection with an event at which the presidents of the parliaments of the EU countries will meet.

The Conference of Speakers of the EU Parliaments (EUSC) is always held in the first half of the year and is organized by the country that held the rotating EU presidency in the previous six months. This year, the Hungarian Parliament will host the event on 11-12 May. Once again, Jet Travel will arrange accommodation for the guests.  This was stated in the registration form sent to the invited guests and obtained by Direkt36.

This document also shows that the Hungarian government is offering hotels in Budapest for this event. The document mentions Dorothea as the first of the five-star hotels that can be booked through Jet Travel. So this is another international event for which the Orbán government is recommending István Tiborcz’s hotel. (Dorothea did not respond to our questions on this.)

Dorothea, which opened in November 2023, has already been supported by the government and government-affiliated business circles in other ways. Tiborcz’s hotel project was classified as a priority investment by the government back in 2018, under which Tiborcz’s BDPST group received special treatment from authorities. According to Válasz Online, the group received more than €9.5 million in loans for the hotel development from MBH Bank, majority-owned by Lőrinc Mészáros, a longtime friend of Viktor Orbán, and from financial institutions that were previously merged into MBH.

(This article was written in collaboration with the investigative team at Helsingin Sanomat newspaper)