Tamás Deutsch, the Fidesz MEP, filed a report with the European Anti-Fraud Office, OLAF, in the case of current MEP Katalin Cseh due to a well-founded suspicion of fraud involving European Union public funds.
Tamás Deutsch wrote in a submission shared on his social media page on Tuesday: OLAF's competence in the case is well-founded, since a member of an EU institution, in this case a representative of the European Parliament, committed a serious breach of duty.
OLAF is responsible for investigating the case, since Pannónia Nyomda Kft., of which Katalin Cseh was managing director between January 25, 2013 and January 10, 2018, applied for EU funds in 2016.
He recalled: in December 2016, Pannónia Nyomda Kft. received HUF 68,126,864 in support in an EU tender, later the same company won HUF 217,579,410 in another EU tender for the development of a so-called holographic GIS descriptive language and a digital holographic printer.
A well-founded suspicion of fraud – deliberately deceiving others for personal gain or harming another party – exists in the case of the above application, as the company led by Katalin Cseh applied for EU funding for the development of hologram technology, which at that time was already available to a company, Pannónia Nyomda Kft. to an associate company that is commercially related to - registered under the same address. Therefore, there is a reasonable suspicion that real product development did not take place - said Tamás Deutsch.
The suspicion of intentional deception also exists due to the fact that the aforementioned companies moved their premises from the central Hungarian region to another Hungarian region in order to get as many EU funds as possible, wrote the Fidesz politician.
According to the submission, there are suspicions of further entanglements and abuses in some tenders, as the companies belonging to the company network applied together in a way that clearly helped Pannónia Nyomda Kft. to win public procurements.
Based on all of this, Katalin Cseh and the company she manages have violated the relevant provisions of the Financial Regulation - the Fidesz politician assesses.
Tamás Deutsch added: OLAF is also competent in cases where EU resources are not involved, but the reputation of the European Union is also at risk because of a person working at its institutions. Fraud clearly threatens the reputation of the EU, it can have serious reputational consequences, he wrote.
NAV can also launch an investigation
PestiSrácok.hu has learned that NAV ordered an addition to the report in connection with the scandal linked to Katalin Cseh. This means that the authority is not yet specifically investigating, but it has not rejected the report either, the NAV has a total of thirty days to decide whether to initiate the procedure or to reject the report.
Source: MTI / pestisracok.hu / civilek.info
