![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/444_logo_s.jpg\"){kind=logo}
<\/a><\/div>\n<\/p>\n
In April, L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Varju, vice president of the left-wing opposition party Democratic Coalition, shared a hostel\u2019s photo on his Facebook page. The photo showed the cosy poolside apartments of the hostel, located in Taksony, in the southern outskirts of Budapest. The first comment<\/a> on Varju\u2019s Facebook post came from a former prominent left-wing politician, ex-minister Monika Lamperth: \u201cLacika, I did not see this cute little lodge in your wealth declarations. J\u201d<\/p>\n Varju later said that the joke made him sad but according to him, Lamperth apologized for it later.<\/p>\n Even so, the hostel is owned by Varju and his family, and it is indeed missing from his yearly wealth declarations. He does not have to declare it because Varju does not own the hotel directly but via a company.<\/p>\n According to his wealth declarations, Varju appears almost penniless: he drives a rented car, lives in a house owned by his wife, and his debts almost exceed his savings. However, this is not the full picture of his assets. Varju fully or partially owns several companies, together with annual revenues worth tens of millions of forints. These companies own, among others, the hostel in Taksony, two small apartments near Lake Balaton, and two cars.<\/p>\n Varju\u2019s real wealth is hidden not only because of the shortcomings of the wealth declaration system. He also failed to declare some of his business interests. Before 2015, he filed incomplete declarations multiple times. He omitted three companies from his filings several times: one was not declared 6 times, another 9 times, and a third 3 times. His declarations were incomplete even in the two years when he was a state minister in the final years of the left-wing government that was voted out of power in 2010.<\/p>\n L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Varju admitted the errors to Direkt36, saying he had been \u201csloppy\u201d, but claimed to have corrected them. He said, however, that his wealth declarations did not give a false image of his wealth because anybody could look into his companies\u2019 matters in public databases.<\/p>\n The wealth declarations in their current state are barely suitable to demonstrate the assets of politicians in a transparent way. Therefore, Direkt36, 444 and Transparency International have partnered to develop a database, in which anyone can search for the declarations of MPs. Our new site,\u00a0Vagyonkeres\u0151<\/a>\u00a0(meaning \u2018Asset Locator\u2019 in Hungarian) aims to help hold the politicians accountable. The database makes it easier to analyse data and detect previously hidden inconsistencies in the declarations. At the same time, it can put pressure on politicians to comply with the rules of the wealth declaration system. As part of the project, we reported on politicians,\u00a0for example PM Viktor Orb\u00e1n<\/a>, who filed inaccurate wealth declarations.<\/p>\n L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Varju, 55-year-old and economist by profession, is a vice president of the Democratic Coalition Party (led by former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcs\u00e1ny). Varju was among the founders of the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP), and he has been a member of parliament since 2002. He had served as mayor of Taksony, and, under the Gyurcs\u00e1ny and Bajnai administrations between 2008-2010, as state secretary of the Ministry for National Economy and Development (NFGM).<\/p>\n L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Varju followed Ferenc Gyurcs\u00e1ny to the new party DK (source: Varju L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Facebook)<\/p><\/div>\n According to his latest wealth declaration, filed this January, Varju neither owns a flat, or a car, does not have valuable works of art, or significant savings. His savings are under 10 million HUF (approximately 32.000 euro) yet he has 8 million HUF (around 25.700 euro) debt. According to his previous declarations, his wealth has never been considerably bigger.<\/p>\n Varju lives in the second district of Budapest, in a 3-room, 116 square metres sized flat, which is owned by his wife since 2003. L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Varju showed the 2015 wealth declarations of his wife and two children to Direkt36. These documents are very similar to Varju’s: these forms are almost entirely blank, too. Varju’s wife indicated the home of the family, a small vineyard and a garage, but otherwise does not have significant assets or savings.<\/p>\n Before, Varju\u2019s address used to be in Taksony, near the bank of the Danube river. Today, the family\u2019s hostel is situated here. This consists of two joint parcels, together 6270 square metres, with 16 small wooden apartments, a pool and a bigger building. The hostel is the property of the politicians\u2019 family company called Varju Ltd. Varju used to organize events here for his fellow party members, thus the hostel is \u201cin some way, the cradle of the left[wing],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The company owning the hostel is one among the six businesses that Varju included in his wealth declarations, but he states that he does not earn money from any of these, and that his only source of income is his salary as an MP (currently 748,000 HUF, roughly 2400 euro per month). The last time he had some income from Varju Ltd. as CEO was in 2007 (400,000 HUF, 1280 euro per month). Most of the companies he is involved in are not in the position to pay dividends, Varju explained.<\/p>\n The taxed profit of Varju Ltd. was, for example, 945,000 HUF (3000 euro) in 2015, but all the profit is spent on the company so that it can maintain stability, he said. The company owns four properties: in addition to the Taksony hostel\u2019s two parcels, it owns two apartments near Lake Balaton (in Balaton\u0151sz\u00f6d), and it also has an office in the centre of Budapest (sixth district, Sz\u00e9kely Mih\u00e1ly street). The company\u2019s assets are worth 93 million HUF (300.000 euro) in total, according to the company\u2019s business reports. In addition to the properties, the asset list includes a swimming pool and a Volvo, bought in 2009 for 5 million HUF (16.000 euro).<\/p>\n The Taksony hostel is officially run by another family company, Z\u00f6ld Sziget Panzi\u00f3 Ltd. Varju is the majority owner and his wife is the company manager. This firm makes millions of forints each year, which have been spent on the refurbishment, air-conditioning and furnishing of the Taksony buildings, the renovation of the pool and it also paid for an LCD TV set bought in 2010, records show.<\/p>\n (source: Varju L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Facebook)<\/p><\/div>\n For running the hostel, the politician\u2019s wife and his daughter earn 200.000 HUF (around 650 euro) each from the Varju Ltd. and Z\u00f6ld Sziget Panzi\u00f3 Ltd. According to Varju, this is the other main source of their family\u2019s income apart from his salary as an MP. Varju said they never wanted to get huge bank loans and did not get money from development funds, so Taksony is basically a youth hostel today and it \u201cis a miracle that it runs at all.\u201d<\/p>\n The address of the Taksony hostel also serves as the seat of a third company. It is called Eur-Int Nonprofit Ltd., owned by Varju since September 2011. During the last few years, the company made tens of millions forints in revenues. Among its assets are IBM servers worth 7.5 million HUF (24.000 euro) and a BMW bought in 2010 for 7 million HUF (22.500 euro). Varju personally did not have an income as CEO or owner.<\/p>\n The three companies mentioned above were regularly included in Varju\u2019s wealth declarations. Yet there were three others that he failed to declare accurately in his filings for years.<\/p>\n One of them is Pro-Mix Br\u00f3ker Kft., which was not indicated in Varju\u2019s declarations until January 2011, even though he has been a partial owner since 1994. The company is an active insurance firm with 9.6 million HUF (30.800 euro) income in 2015. Varju claims not to have gained any income from the firm.<\/p>\n The case is similar with the accounting firm Siva.hu Ltd.: Varju has officially been a 75-percent owner of the company since 2001, yet he failed to include it in his declarations among 2007 and 2014. During these years, he had to file 9 declarations. In 2008, he also forgot about the company, even though he was its CEO until December that year.<\/p>\n The third one is Europaimpex Kft., which is an inactive company with massive debts. Varju has been a member of the Ltd. since 29 May 2013, but it slipped his mind until 2015. This means he omitted it in three declarations.<\/p>\n L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Varju said to Direkt36 that the mistakes were because of his carelessness, and that he \u201cdid not have much to do\u201d with the companies\u2019 activities and that \u201cwhat happened to them did not have much result.\u201d He realized his mistakes after a media article in 2014, and decided to \u201cclear the situation\u201d and include everything. The errors were corrected in his latest declarations, and he apologized for it \u201cin his own party as well,\u201d he said. He made no use of these companies, and intends to get rid of them. \u201cSo that I do not feel awkward when being questioned,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The article was written in contribution with B\u00e1lint Fab\u00f3k of Direkt36.<\/em><\/p>\n For information on companies, we used the databases of Ceginfo<\/a> and\u00a0Opten<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\nWe can only do this work if we have supporters. Become a supporting member now!<\/a><\/h3>\n
What do Varju\u2019s companies own?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"L\u00e1szl\u00f3](\"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Varju6.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"(source:](\"https:\/\/www.direkt36.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Varju7.jpg\")
<\/a>What about the businesses that Varju forgot?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
We can only do this work if we have supporters. Become a supporting member now!<\/a><\/h3>\n