Hungarian government seeks to gain ownership of Budapest Airport

The Hungarian government, in the form of the current ruling party, Fidesz, has a chequered history where its gateway airport in the capital, Budapest, is concerned.

Having once owned the airport, it had cancelled a contract with a foreign company to build a terminal (at some cost) and then subsequently threatened to renationalise it and/or list it on the stock exchange on several occasions after it was privatised when Fidesz was out of power. Latterly a consortium with connections to the government had sounded the owners out, late in 2020.

Now the government has made an unsolicited bid to buy the majority share that is held by the German company, AviAlliance.

It looks for all the world as if this is a political manoeuvre by the Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, who faces a make or break general election in 2022 or sooner, and who is embroiled in yet another conflict with the EU to settle the issue before Hungary potentially quits the EU - or is even ejected.

It could lead to a bidding war as the sector starts to clamber out of the COVID pit it has been in for 18 months.