Head of Hungary's Integrity Authority, the anti-corruption watchdog created under pressure from the EU to oversee the use of EU funds, has accused former senior ministers in Viktor Orban's government of attempting to stop investigations into politically sensitive cases and orchestrating a broader campaign of intimidation against him and his family, Kontroll.hu writes on June 8. In a separate interview with Politico the former auditor said that top officials in the Orban government should be investigated over billions of euros in missing EU funds.

In a lengthy interview with De! Action Group, the same team which published the Price of Vote documentary, Biro claimed that in March 2024, then Justice Minister Bence Tuzson and Minister for European Affairs Janos Boka personally instructed him not to carry out the authority's work after it launched an investigation into the National Directorate General for Hospitals (OKFŐ)

"Effectively, they told me not to do my job," Biro said, describing a meeting, following an on-site inspection after reports of suspected irregularities. He added that a device publicly displayed in the room prevents audio recording of conversations.

The Integrity Authority was established in 2022 as one of the key reforms demanded by the European Commission under its rule-of-law conditionality mechanism. The body was tasked with investigating fraud; conflicts of interest and corruption risks involving EU-funded projects and has been viewed by Brussels as a central component of efforts to safeguard EU money in Hungary.

The authority's effectiveness has been closely linked to negotiations over billions of euros in frozen EU funds. Hungary's access to a substantial portion of cohesion and recovery funding has been contingent on implementing anti-corruption safeguards and strengthening institutional oversight.

Biro claimed that after the meeting, government ministries and state institutions introduced administrative measures to obstruct the authority's work, including limiting access to public bodies and restricting the flow of information.

The watchdog chief also alleged that over the past three years he had been subjected to sustained political pressure, criminal investigations and attempts to intimidate his family.

In January 2025, investigators raided the anti-graft authority's office and searched his home. Prosecutors accused Biro of allowing the company car to be used for his wife's personal use, resulting in a financial loss of HUF14mn (€34,000), and of unlawfully restricting the deputy director of IH's powers.

He further claimed that his wife was threatened with criminal charges during the investigation and that the staged traffic incident had the hallmarks of an intelligence operation. Biro dismissed all charges and said these were attempts by the government to force him to resign.

When asked why he had not stepped out earlier in public, Biro said he had remained largely silent until now because he feared that a direct confrontation with the government would destroy the institution he had been tasked with building.

In one of the interview's most striking passages, the chief of IH revised his earlier position that corruption in Hungary was not systemic.

"What society today understands as corruption was practised at a systemic level," he said.

He estimated that corruption may have cost Hungary as much as HUF60 trillion (€150bn) over the past 16 years, describing the figure as a conservative calculation based on public spending and estimated corruption losses. While the estimate cannot be independently verified, it is one of the largest assessments of alleged corruption costs ever made by a serving Hungarian public official.

In 2010, when Fidesz swept to power, around 5% of the budget may have been lost to various corruption channels, which rose to 20% by 2025, he said.

When asked about the scale of corruption in various sectors, he said that in the communication tenders, around half of all public contracts could be affected by corruption

He has investigated a series of cases by the authority, including state communication spending, public procurement projects, railway investments, and pandemic-era ventilator purchases.

He recalled that some HUF1.3 trillion had been spent on government communications in the past decade, centred around companies linked to businessman Gyula Balasy, whom he described as a stooge rather than the ultimate beneficiary. After the election, the businessman, tied to former intelligence and propaganda chief Antal Rogan, offered his businesses for sale to the state in a public interview. This came after authorities froze all accounts of his companies, including his private ones, while the loss of orders has devalued his businesses.

The Integrity Authority chief was equally critical of the business empire built by billionaire Lorinc Mészáros, a childhood friend of Orban who became one of Hungary's wealthiest businessmen during his 16 years in power. He said companies associated with Mészáros repeatedly appeared in investigations conducted by the authority, and described the conglomerate's rise as "disgraceful".

Among the largest ongoing investigations, he mentioned the Gondosora ("Care Watch") programme, a state-funded emergency alert service that provides elderly citizens with wearable alarm devices. He suggested that the case could ultimately involve spending on the order of HUF1 trillion, although he stressed that the investigation remains incomplete. The government also used the scheme for propaganda; local media recalls that users regularly received messages on their smartwatches from the prime minister.

The interview comes as the new Tisza government is working to release frozen EU funds and has pledged to strengthen anti-corruption measures. According to Biro, preserving the Integrity Authority is essential for Hungary's chances of recovering between €10bn and €16bn in EU funding.

He said Hungary now faced a historic opportunity to confront past abuses and rebuild public trust in state institutions.

The two former Fidesz ministers strongly rejected the allegations and said chief of IH had been seeking immunity and investigative authority for his office. Bence Tuzson said the talks unfolded in a friendly atmosphere, denied by Biro and acknowledged the anti-eavesdropping device in his room.  

In a separate interview with Politico, Biro described what he said was a system of entrenched corruption in which three companies captured the majority of government contracts. He claimed that the state had spent roughly €10bn with those firms over the past four years and that inflated pricing may have exposed up to €3.5bn to corruption risks.

Biro further alleged that public procurement procedures were manipulated, with routine goods and services often procured at several times their market value, while the state had come to dominate large segments of the economy.

He said recovering at least some of the allegedly misappropriated funds was still achievable. He added that the Integrity Authority had identified numerous cases with potential criminal implications in which authorities could seek to reclaim the money, although a substantial portion had already been moved overseas.

The Integrity Authority is ready to share information gathered during its investigations with the new government, he added.

In a related development, Justice Minister Marta Gorog said on June 8 that the government would submit a new anti-corruption and transparency package to parliament later this week as part of efforts to unlock suspended EU funding. The proposed measures would address judicial independence, introduce more comprehensive asset declaration requirements, strengthen the Integrity Authority's powers, tighten conflict-of-interest rules, and increase transparency regarding the ultimate beneficial owners of private equity funds.