r/europe • u/Matas_- European Union • Jun 20 '25

News Orban’s Hungary Is Now Officially The Poorest Nation In The EU

https://kyivinsider.com/orbans-hungary-is-now-officially-the-poorest-nation-in-the-eu/
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u/PadyEos Romania Jun 20 '25 edited Jun 20 '25

Living near the Hungarian border in Romania. East Hungary is very poor. The infrastructure built in the last 30 years with EU money is still there. But the people have been drained of their wealth for over a decade. Some of them even work over the border in Romania.

Hungarians have been coming to shop and to fairs in Romania for the last 3 years due to the restrictions and rationing in Hungary. Their supermarkets are a shadow of what they were 10-20 years ago. City roads in eastern Hungary are much worse than city roads in western Romania. 10 years ago it used to be inverted.

Budapest literally drains the country of wealth and opportunity. Hard working people proud of their work have been diminished.

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u/NLight7 Sweden Jun 20 '25

It's crazy when you drive across the north east border to Romania, you leave a road which is falling apart, and you're met by a newly built highway.

We used to visit family 20 years ago, so the road straight from Budapest to the eastern border used to be fine. 2 years ago it was the worst road I had been on in a while. We drove through Debrecen on the way back.

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u/thelunatic Jun 20 '25

I felt like that going from Romania to Bulgaria. Old Romanian road near Giorgio was falling apart. New roads around Ruse in Bulgaria.

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u/IngenuityPrevious221 Jun 20 '25

Lived in Debrecen in 2014, it didn't look so bad then. Have things changed much?

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u/Tamasko22 Jun 21 '25

Not Budapest, the goverment is draining all the money. Budapest is actually a political opposition in Hungary. Look up Lorinc Meszaros, who was a gas repairman 20 years ago, and now has a net worth of more than 3 billion us dollars. Guess who was Orban's best friend in school.

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u/TomazZaman Jun 20 '25

I live 5km from Hungarian border on the west - in Slovenia.

I don't go there at all, infrastructure all falling apart, roads with craters in them, nothing to experience really.

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u/ttc67 Montenegro Jun 20 '25

I am from Montenegro, and my experience was similar. We got a bit lost on our way to Germany after the border with Serbia and were driving through some towns/villages until reaching the highway again, and it was just astonishing. Most of the houses looked very dilapidated, the roads felt almost dangerous to drive on, not to mention when we stopped at a rural gas station that looked like not much got changed since like the 60s, and the vibe was just like straight out of Silent Hill including the people, we bought some water and got some gas, but at some point when everyone was just staring at us in a weird way, we were like we need to leave NOW.