The sign proudly announces that the roundabout near Zalaegerszeg in western Hungary was built with 500 million forints (about $1.5 million) of funds from the European Union.
The roundabout was built to service a container terminal on a new railway line that would help provide this landlocked part of central Europe with better access to the sea. Rather than having to pass through Budapest, Hungary’s capital, goods arriving from the Adriatic coast would transit quickly through the west of the country into Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and beyond.
But there’s a problem. Years after the roundabout was built, there’s still no railway. Instead, the roundabout lies unused in a field, waiting for the Hungarian government to build the railway that would make it useful.
Critics of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán say EU-funded construction projects like these are a monument to the economic system his government has built over its 16 years in office. Orbán’s electoral success, they say, has combined relentlessly demonizing the EU – painting it as a decadent, liberal, corrupting force in Hungary – while happily accepting vast amounts of money from it.
If he wins, there are going to be more than one roundabouts.
Would be hilarious if they went in hard with it. Just start copy-pasting just a wild amount of them in grids that don’t connect to any inlet or exit to/from actual roads. After a certain point, they could say it is some national art project that is about the very corruption that leads to this original one.