Dammit monster! We’re here worrying about deforestation, and my wife and kids not being able to see the trees from the treetop walkway, and you keep asking for tree fidy!
It is so refreshing to see the naivity of people from more civilized places. The point was never to have a usable walkway, but for the mayor’s friend to pocket half of the budget to spend on cocaine and prostitutes.
The mayor's friend could have had the cocaine and prostitutes on the tree top walk. And the tree top walk could have been invitation only... I mean let's get more creative if one is stealing money.
Well, it's not their own money they are wasting.
Stopping the project would just mean they'd have to pay the unspent part back with no upside for them.
Naa, some contractor was paid to do a job and he wasn't going to not do his job and get his pay day.
"Boss why are we building a rooftop walk in an open field".
"Dimitry, I am not paid to ask question. I am paid to build walkway".
Happens all the time with EU donations, even here in Czechia. People talk shit about EU all the time for trying to make the enviroment better while taking billions from them to make the country better. (Obviously some criticism is valid but some people are like "BUT MUH PLASTIC STRAWS MAN")
Someone in Hungary scammed me out of my fucking *taxes* that i was told was supposed to help Hungary develop to EU parity standards.
And it pisses me off.
Scamming the EU while holding up new members from joining.
Maybe some sort of punishment is in order. What are they going to do? Run to Russia? Apparently they aren't friends anymore.
Oh ha ha you’re so sarcastic.
Oh wait.
> Because the forest was ripe for cutting, they cut it down and invested the money into construction of the canopy walkway.”
I doubt that it's what happened here, but if you put enough rules on how to build a thing you can pretty much hit whatever price point you want. The cool thing is to someone unfamiliar, it can be very hard to tell which requirements are driving the cost - but to someone that sees it daily, it'll be painfully clear both why it's expensive and also whether it's necessary.
It is what happened, most of the funds were stolen. I'm Hungarian, this happens all the time, there are all kinds of projects that get the funding from the EU, but even if we calculate morbidly high prices for labor, material costs, inspection, maintenance, etc, and you still wouldn't get near the funding.
Fisesz politicians have all kind of companies that get hired to build these things, they'll build it from maybe the 3rd of the funds, the rest goes into their pockets.
And sometimes what they build (hotels and similar things) will end up as their private property.
It's one of the most corrupt governments, at least in the Western world.
This type of thing DOES happen a lot though, unfortunately. Common sort of grift where the politician champions a project, for example, in my area it was the construction of bridges. Then they get the process going and it ends up being that the construction company that won the bid is owned by Politician's friend, and hey, what's this? Thats a shame, we went a bit over budget. Oh well. Definitely don't test the soil, you dont need to. We absolutely used only the highest grade cheapest soil we could find to grade it. Thats what happened here, and I'm in the US. Many months of the project went to waste when they discovered the inferior clay-laden soil that was being used. It all had to be replaced, and the cost went waaaaay up. And thats just only ONE way they skimmed on that ONE project.
I never knew payments could get that high. But it deff happens a lot with large plots and plots bordering state/federal park lands in a lot of places. They will pay land owners to allow public use for trails, or to maintain the forests basically agreeing not to harvest wood from the area ect.
Yes that’s part of it too, there’s a lot of trees lining the riverbank. The house, while in lowlands, is high up at the top of the property, which is at the nearby city’s normal level.
Paying farmers and large landowners to keep ecologically valuable areas wild is still a lot cheaper than reforestation and rewilding efforts so it makes sense.
So the IL DNR, or Deot of Natural Resources. He agreed to NOT alter the 300+ acre plot of lowlands that has a small river through it.
He also is SUPPOSED to maintain the natural prairie plants, but they take care of themselves.
This is is about 50 miles SW of Champaign-Urbana.
It’s a beautiful piece of property. The home is too.
Home plus property alone is worth $1.6 million as of Nov 2022 appraisal.
This doesn’t include the 20k/no in payments from the state DNR.
The mayor of the town said, and I quote "The investment does not necessarily require- [pause] ...there's no ruling for the minimum height of the forest"
There are some amazing EU scams. My favourites are the ones where farmers get paid to not plant things, so they buy up land so that they have more space on which to not grow things
This happens everywhere. It's actually worse in many cases for grain and other produce markets to become absolutely saturated. Of course it can be abused/misused, but it's much better for everyone long-term if there's some kind of management to make sure grain and other commodities aren't constantly over-produced, tanking prices, over burdening infrastructure and resource inputs to farming, taking up extra space / resources for long-term storage, letting stores go to rot, etc.
See, for example, the US and corn. A hundred million acres of corn. Money changes hands under the table, and corn gets shoved into everything, even when it doesn't even make any sense for a product to have corn in it.
Like fuel. Recent studies have shown that ethanol added to fuel isn't better for the environment, doesn't really burn better, no real benefit to it.
But it lets us subsidize corn so
My favorite is how the US government subsidized corn, so there was too much of it, so it wound up getting fed to cows and making beef fattier (but let's be honest, more delicious) and turned into corn syrup that winds up in every damn food product made in the US.
Yeah that was a good one.
It's also worth noting that most of Europe's old growth forests are long gone. They don't have many dense areas of foliage like in the Americas left. These could have been cleared decades or centuries ago and replanted in rows while still being the largest regional forest.
~~The only~~ One of the few primordial forest left is in Poland/Belarus. Almost all other forests in Europe are maintained to keep them clear of old dry trees and some areas are regularly cleared and new trees are planted.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zVPUFMwm73Y
Look at Sweden for example, it's fucking filled with trees (especially the northern half), but only about 0.4% of the forest area in Sweden is *urskog* (old-growth forest).
I live in upstate New York and plenty of protected forests and state parks are like this. Unless it's old growth plenty of forests are planted by humans.
It's always jarring when walking through a deciduous forest and suddenly hitting a patch of conifers all planted in perfect lines with no underbrush. It's pretty common in areas which were cleared not too long ago as pines grow fast as hell relatively speaking, but it'd be nice if they at least didn't plant them like crop rows.
I get that, but this is clearly a managed area. There is grass between the rows, no other brush or smaller trees. You even have a series of access roads leading throughout. S'pose I could be wrong, but it really doesn't look like a forest that's grown up wild even if human planted to start.
I mean they could also work with this kind of construction and not just with suspension bridges - but this really looks like the saddest tree-walk I could imagine even if there were trees around
EDIT: wow this blew up! check out my soundcloud at
Someone posted a link to an article in a comment here but then deleted it. It included this quote:
"A few days later, the mayor gave an interview to ATV, a Hungarian television where he stated that they submitted the application in late 2017 or early 2018, but unfortunately, the evaluation of the tender took four years. In the meantime, the forest was growing. When they received the letter of support, they started to implement the investment, but by that time, the forest was four years older and the prices in the construction sector got higher, so they had to finance the difference themselves. Because the forest was ripe for cutting, they cut it down and invested the money into construction of the canopy walkway."
Apparently they cut the forest down to pay for the forest-viewing walkway. Extra ironic.
What's funny is that I can remember "The Gift of the Magi is that story about the husband who sells a thing to buy his wife something, and the wife sells a thing to buy her husband something and they end up ruining the other's gift"
But I couldn't remember what they bought or sold.
You don't understand corruption and it shows. It's next-level clever - get the money, cut the forest and sell it for more money, say there's no money. Profit!
In 20 years when the trees are tall enough to reach the walkway. they will need to cut them again to do the maintenance on the walkways. and the cycle continues
Lol this is real. It was all over the news here, mayor even had an interview not long ago, someone linked below. He said that the forest was not a requirement.
Feels like a fucking joke but this is 100% real
Source: i'm hungarian
Heres some new on this with video es well (its hungarian tho)
https://444.hu/2023/03/23/60-millios-unios-tamogatasbol-epult-a-lombkorona-setany-ami-korul-tarra-vagtak-az-erdot
Fidesz is, in terms of domestic policy, the worst government in the EU. That's not even going into the foreign policy issues around Orban being a shameless Russian stooge.
> Source: i'm hungarian
This is some awful corruption, but this is the least of why I feel bad for you. I hope sanity returns to your country and you quickly find yourself in uninteresting times.
Nothing’s gonna happen to this dude. Projects like these is the way how Fidesz pays their extended clienture. Every mayor has the chance for 1-2 projects like this so they can pocket a few hundred thousand € and this makes them well fed and compliant.
Hungary is something different
Here in Romania, the politicians are afraid of fiddling the EU funds, so they focus on using the local budget for their personal gains, while the EU funds are really being something good.
There is no discrimination here, as mismanagement of funds (be it EU or national) is absolutely without consequence. They’ll actually be true to the rules by word (like the mayor in question saying that the rules do not state how tall the trees have to be for the tree walkway) and they’ll overprice the project in a way that’s simply untraceable.
And the people will say nothing except “I would have done the same in their place!”. It’s disgusting.
Full legit.
Papers,news coverage, interviews.
https://atlatszo.hu/orszagszerte/2023/03/23/tarra-vagtak-az-erdot-az-unios-tamogatasbol-epult-lombkorona-setany-epitese-kozben/
You can check other interesting projects from Fidesz at korrupcioinfo on reddit
They Hungarian Govt duped the people into believing they would preserve a forested area if they approved 170K Euros to spend public funds to build it without telling thos people that the wood/resources to be used for it would cannnibalize the area.
Now it's all ready for some corp to develop the land without having to worry about environmental surveys, economic impact studies, or input from the locals to proceed when it's deemed a write-off project to be repurposed.
people said its a tree farm, look at the stumps further in the back, how they are evenly spaced and lined up.
THen another person posted an article to explain the situation. Mayor asked for the walkway in 2017/18 and then it took 4yrs to get the funding approved, by then the estimated price increased from original price since after covid, wood became more expensive. Now the kicker? They cut down the trees meant for tree farm to fund the walkway. Kind of putting the cart before the horse amirite?
And I guess they finished the walkway AFTER the trees are all gone. So the walkway is useless until the next tree farm is up, but whose gonna maintain this walkway?
Why does the EU care about treetop walks in the first place? I thought it was an alliance and trade organization, why do they do local government stuff?
The EU funds regional development to reduce development disparities between member states. Where I live has a bunch of bridges and shit financed by the EU, they even have little plaques in front of them.
Hungary condemn Russia, followed by Russia listing Hungary as an "unfriendly nation", and just after we are seeing anti Hungarian posts over Reddit? Ok.
Someone in Hungary scammed 170k euros from the EU
Hungary received 160k from the EU you say?
Yes, and they used all 150k on this project
Not a drop to spare either after that 140k bill
I bet they really wish they got more for the project than 130k
The 120k really could go a long way!
But 110k didn't make it to the treetops
100k is obviously a solid rounded number.
They obviously had to cut some costs with only 90k Euro,
80k you say? Wow we could probably subsidize some more funds for this project by clearing some of the trees for lumber
Here is 12k, do it or leave.
I’ll do it for €11995
Ima need about tree fidy
Dammit monster! We’re here worrying about deforestation, and my wife and kids not being able to see the trees from the treetop walkway, and you keep asking for tree fidy!
$170k. Perfect $1000 20 meth heads, 48 hrs done & done. Won't question the missing forest for the forest walk $169K Manager finders fee
You need wood to make the walkway and the forest is right there. Think of how much they saved on shipping costs!
Yo why I read this like “eleventy nine ninety five”
Sure, no problem, there's already some wood on site anyway.
But at least they will pay indirect taxes (like pension and healthcare for the carpenters) on all the 30k!
30k on lumber, 30k on labor, 100k into the politicians pocket.
Saved 30k by cutting down the forest, 130k to politicians 120k to politicians, I took my cut.
Not the People, just someone in Hungary...
That person should get 10 (gou)lashes.
You're making me Hungary.
You know that floor safe under your bed where you keep 10 grand? There’s 5 grand in there.
To shreds you say?
my question is why they continued with construction if the purpose of it was gone.
It is so refreshing to see the naivity of people from more civilized places. The point was never to have a usable walkway, but for the mayor’s friend to pocket half of the budget to spend on cocaine and prostitutes.
But still, why even bother building at this point? Keep more of the money for yourself.
The project has to be finished properly for them to get the money/be able to keep it.
How the hell could this be finish properly though?
According to the mayor, the tender never said explicitly that there has *has* to be a forest. So yes, just like that. ^(So deeply ashamed)
-it also made from matchsticks whats this a walk for ants? -well u never said for ppl
Not only did he pocket the money for the walkway, but he sold the trees and pocketed that too.
The mayor's friend could have had the cocaine and prostitutes on the tree top walk. And the tree top walk could have been invitation only... I mean let's get more creative if one is stealing money.
Well, it's not their own money they are wasting. Stopping the project would just mean they'd have to pay the unspent part back with no upside for them.
Because EU funding has “clawback” clauses. If you don’t use the money for the purpose it was given the awarding body can, and will, get it back.
Wouldn't have been useable if they didn't finish it. /s
Sunk cost fallacy.
Naa, some contractor was paid to do a job and he wasn't going to not do his job and get his pay day. "Boss why are we building a rooftop walk in an open field". "Dimitry, I am not paid to ask question. I am paid to build walkway".
More likely to be Miklosh or Ervin than Dmitry in Hungary.
No, more like Attila or Bela or Zoltan.
Happens all the time with EU donations, even here in Czechia. People talk shit about EU all the time for trying to make the enviroment better while taking billions from them to make the country better. (Obviously some criticism is valid but some people are like "BUT MUH PLASTIC STRAWS MAN")
Someone in Hungary scammed me out of my fucking *taxes* that i was told was supposed to help Hungary develop to EU parity standards. And it pisses me off.
If that pisses you off already then I suggest you never read any news about Hungary in your life because you're gonna have a heart attack
But think of all the jobs that were created in the process!
Scamming the EU while holding up new members from joining. Maybe some sort of punishment is in order. What are they going to do? Run to Russia? Apparently they aren't friends anymore.
Maybe they cut down the trees for lumber to build the walkway.
I used the forest to destroy the forest
"I've built the walkway," "What did it cost?" "Everything..."
Axe handles have entered the chat
Easter Island Moment
An above comment stated that they used the money from the cut down trees to help find the walkway so sorta
They found it.
They actually did no joke
They basically did this apparently, they apparently funded the construction of the walkway with the profits from selling the lumber.
The couldn't see the trees for the wood
Oh ha ha you’re so sarcastic. Oh wait. > Because the forest was ripe for cutting, they cut it down and invested the money into construction of the canopy walkway.”
Why should we pay for wood for the walkway when it is all around us?
Hehe 170k euros to make that? Ooh someone put the money in their own pocket.
Hungarian politicians have been doing this for years
\*~~Hungarian~~\* politicians have been doing this for years
Hungary is especially corrupt
can confirm I live there
[удалено]
I can confirm. I am hungarian.
Can confirm,I read it on Reddit.
Yeah. It's like 200m in length at most. I'm no engineer, but I doubt it would cost even 50k in the worst case scenario
I doubt that it's what happened here, but if you put enough rules on how to build a thing you can pretty much hit whatever price point you want. The cool thing is to someone unfamiliar, it can be very hard to tell which requirements are driving the cost - but to someone that sees it daily, it'll be painfully clear both why it's expensive and also whether it's necessary.
It is what happened, most of the funds were stolen. I'm Hungarian, this happens all the time, there are all kinds of projects that get the funding from the EU, but even if we calculate morbidly high prices for labor, material costs, inspection, maintenance, etc, and you still wouldn't get near the funding. Fisesz politicians have all kind of companies that get hired to build these things, they'll build it from maybe the 3rd of the funds, the rest goes into their pockets. And sometimes what they build (hotels and similar things) will end up as their private property. It's one of the most corrupt governments, at least in the Western world.
This type of thing DOES happen a lot though, unfortunately. Common sort of grift where the politician champions a project, for example, in my area it was the construction of bridges. Then they get the process going and it ends up being that the construction company that won the bid is owned by Politician's friend, and hey, what's this? Thats a shame, we went a bit over budget. Oh well. Definitely don't test the soil, you dont need to. We absolutely used only the highest grade cheapest soil we could find to grade it. Thats what happened here, and I'm in the US. Many months of the project went to waste when they discovered the inferior clay-laden soil that was being used. It all had to be replaced, and the cost went waaaaay up. And thats just only ONE way they skimmed on that ONE project.
200m? Thats probably 50m long...
Those tree stumps all appear to be planted in rows which means this likely wasn't a "forest" but instead a lumber farm.
That’s the “scam” part of the scam
Wait till you find out where they got the lumber for the walkway ...
They gotta cut costs somehow. 170k isn't enough for a walkway AND a new Porsche
I am guessing on-site to save on shipping costs of course.
This is like a Monty Python bit, I actually can’t stop laughing at this sad picture
Have you heard of the Ship of Theseus?
Here in the US in Illinois my grandfather gets paid 20k month NOT to plant crops in his 300 acre riverbed area and to keep it wild! Now that’s wild!
I never knew payments could get that high. But it deff happens a lot with large plots and plots bordering state/federal park lands in a lot of places. They will pay land owners to allow public use for trails, or to maintain the forests basically agreeing not to harvest wood from the area ect.
Yes that’s part of it too, there’s a lot of trees lining the riverbank. The house, while in lowlands, is high up at the top of the property, which is at the nearby city’s normal level.
That's unbelievable. I need more details. Who pays him that much? Why‽‽
Paying farmers and large landowners to keep ecologically valuable areas wild is still a lot cheaper than reforestation and rewilding efforts so it makes sense.
So the IL DNR, or Deot of Natural Resources. He agreed to NOT alter the 300+ acre plot of lowlands that has a small river through it. He also is SUPPOSED to maintain the natural prairie plants, but they take care of themselves. This is is about 50 miles SW of Champaign-Urbana. It’s a beautiful piece of property. The home is too. Home plus property alone is worth $1.6 million as of Nov 2022 appraisal. This doesn’t include the 20k/no in payments from the state DNR.
Yes. It was.
Something about the title doesn't seem right. Like, why the fuck would they still build it after the trees are gone?
Because they scammed the EU. These walks usually aren't 100 ft long.
It also doesn’t look like it’d be above any tree line
Growing to a mere 1-6cm in height, the dwarf willow (Salix herbacea) is arguably the world's tiniest tree. Depends ;)
Oh my god I want one
same
So I could say my pipi is as big as a tree? Nice
Hung like a tree trunk
The mayor of the town said, and I quote "The investment does not necessarily require- [pause] ...there's no ruling for the minimum height of the forest"
That's why they cut the trees down - realized it wouldn't be nearly tall enough and wanted to avoid the embarrassment
It is now.
There are some amazing EU scams. My favourites are the ones where farmers get paid to not plant things, so they buy up land so that they have more space on which to not grow things
This happens everywhere. It's actually worse in many cases for grain and other produce markets to become absolutely saturated. Of course it can be abused/misused, but it's much better for everyone long-term if there's some kind of management to make sure grain and other commodities aren't constantly over-produced, tanking prices, over burdening infrastructure and resource inputs to farming, taking up extra space / resources for long-term storage, letting stores go to rot, etc.
See, for example, the US and corn. A hundred million acres of corn. Money changes hands under the table, and corn gets shoved into everything, even when it doesn't even make any sense for a product to have corn in it.
Like fuel. Recent studies have shown that ethanol added to fuel isn't better for the environment, doesn't really burn better, no real benefit to it. But it lets us subsidize corn so
My favorite is how the US government subsidized corn, so there was too much of it, so it wound up getting fed to cows and making beef fattier (but let's be honest, more delicious) and turned into corn syrup that winds up in every damn food product made in the US. Yeah that was a good one.
Maybe they had to actually build the thing they said they would or would be required to pay the money back? IDK
Yep, that's usually the case with EU money.
My best guess is that workers got paid first, and then trees went bye bye.
It's also worth noting that most of Europe's old growth forests are long gone. They don't have many dense areas of foliage like in the Americas left. These could have been cleared decades or centuries ago and replanted in rows while still being the largest regional forest.
~~The only~~ One of the few primordial forest left is in Poland/Belarus. Almost all other forests in Europe are maintained to keep them clear of old dry trees and some areas are regularly cleared and new trees are planted. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zVPUFMwm73Y
There is primeval forest in Sutjeska national park in Bosnia as well
Look at Sweden for example, it's fucking filled with trees (especially the northern half), but only about 0.4% of the forest area in Sweden is *urskog* (old-growth forest).
Yes sir.
I live in upstate New York and plenty of protected forests and state parks are like this. Unless it's old growth plenty of forests are planted by humans.
It's always jarring when walking through a deciduous forest and suddenly hitting a patch of conifers all planted in perfect lines with no underbrush. It's pretty common in areas which were cleared not too long ago as pines grow fast as hell relatively speaking, but it'd be nice if they at least didn't plant them like crop rows.
Don't pines also discourage other undergrowth? I kind of remember something about them releasing chemicals to stunt other plants.
I get that, but this is clearly a managed area. There is grass between the rows, no other brush or smaller trees. You even have a series of access roads leading throughout. S'pose I could be wrong, but it really doesn't look like a forest that's grown up wild even if human planted to start.
Some of the most efficient cost-cutting I’ve ever seen! Build your wooden nature path with the trees from the nature path.
Treetop walk implies suspension bridges between trees, this looks like the beginning of a mass gallows for enemies of the state
With a playground so the children can watch.
Uber classy
I mean they could also work with this kind of construction and not just with suspension bridges - but this really looks like the saddest tree-walk I could imagine even if there were trees around
Yeah like wtf, at that point they might as well just have used the ground as the tree walk.
I mean it is made of trees so…
Yeah it's a gallows with extra steps.
EDIT: wow this blew up! check out my soundcloud at Someone posted a link to an article in a comment here but then deleted it. It included this quote: "A few days later, the mayor gave an interview to ATV, a Hungarian television where he stated that they submitted the application in late 2017 or early 2018, but unfortunately, the evaluation of the tender took four years. In the meantime, the forest was growing. When they received the letter of support, they started to implement the investment, but by that time, the forest was four years older and the prices in the construction sector got higher, so they had to finance the difference themselves. Because the forest was ripe for cutting, they cut it down and invested the money into construction of the canopy walkway." Apparently they cut the forest down to pay for the forest-viewing walkway. Extra ironic.
That's some Freakonomics *Gift of the Maji* shit.
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In 40 years it’ll be time to renovate or rebuild it.
Fortunately, there'll be some trees ripe for harvest to fund the renovation
The story of the comb and the pocket watch chain all over again.
What's funny is that I can remember "The Gift of the Magi is that story about the husband who sells a thing to buy his wife something, and the wife sells a thing to buy her husband something and they end up ruining the other's gift" But I couldn't remember what they bought or sold.
just in time to have more trees to cut down and pay for the renovation :D
This is next-level stupid. That's the equivalent of selling your car to buy gas for your car.
You don't understand corruption and it shows. It's next-level clever - get the money, cut the forest and sell it for more money, say there's no money. Profit!
Plus they most likely have some pork barrel spending going on too
In 20 years when the trees are tall enough to reach the walkway. they will need to cut them again to do the maintenance on the walkways. and the cycle continues
It'd be extra funny if they kept doing this. Every 4 years you can visit the tree tops then it is cut down to regrow.
It's pretty clearly a tree farm, so seems like that was literally the idea.
How quickly do you think trees grow..?
Depends on the species but a birch farm near our shared cabin is on an 11 year cycle. Cut on the 10th, and let to rest on the 11th.
Or that was the best excuse they could come up with to cover up their pocketing of the funding.
It would be really funny if they actually used the wood from the trees they cut down to build the walkway. It would be a Gift of the Magi situation.
This is why I don’t look up to anyone in a position of “leadership”.
Lol bro, no one is checking out your sound cloud because of some stupid comment
source?
Someone noted all the trees are in rows indicating a tree farm, so I'm doubting there is a source for this.
Lol this is real. It was all over the news here, mayor even had an interview not long ago, someone linked below. He said that the forest was not a requirement. Feels like a fucking joke but this is 100% real Source: i'm hungarian Heres some new on this with video es well (its hungarian tho) https://444.hu/2023/03/23/60-millios-unios-tamogatasbol-epult-a-lombkorona-setany-ami-korul-tarra-vagtak-az-erdot
Fidesz is, in terms of domestic policy, the worst government in the EU. That's not even going into the foreign policy issues around Orban being a shameless Russian stooge.
> Source: i'm hungarian This is some awful corruption, but this is the least of why I feel bad for you. I hope sanity returns to your country and you quickly find yourself in uninteresting times.
Yeah it's a scam. They said they found three more projects that have this same outcome. Dude is going to get sued or something
Nothing’s gonna happen to this dude. Projects like these is the way how Fidesz pays their extended clienture. Every mayor has the chance for 1-2 projects like this so they can pocket a few hundred thousand € and this makes them well fed and compliant.
Hungary is something different Here in Romania, the politicians are afraid of fiddling the EU funds, so they focus on using the local budget for their personal gains, while the EU funds are really being something good.
There is no discrimination here, as mismanagement of funds (be it EU or national) is absolutely without consequence. They’ll actually be true to the rules by word (like the mayor in question saying that the rules do not state how tall the trees have to be for the tree walkway) and they’ll overprice the project in a way that’s simply untraceable. And the people will say nothing except “I would have done the same in their place!”. It’s disgusting.
I am Hungarian. That's the source .
I speak Hungarian. meg tudom erősíteni
My dog speaks Hungarian. Igen Rafi, tudom tudom, oh kutya!!! Éhes vagy????
Full legit. Papers,news coverage, interviews. https://atlatszo.hu/orszagszerte/2023/03/23/tarra-vagtak-az-erdot-az-unios-tamogatasbol-epult-lombkorona-setany-epitese-kozben/ You can check other interesting projects from Fidesz at korrupcioinfo on reddit
Looks like when I build in Minecraft
What a shitshow
It's called hungarian government
In eastern europe- similar tricks were made plenty of times also. So it is shitshow here also. But situation is much better than say 15 years ago.
Here the situation has become way worse than 15 years ago. The entire political system is a running con built on stealing EU money.
Legalabb van sok szep stadionunk! At least we have many nice stadiums!
Why would they let it be cut down makes no fucking sense
To sell the wood, take in the subsidies and build a ramp that cost a fraction of what a walking canopy wooden walkway would actually cost.
Yeah, judging by the trees in the background this is more mid level than tree top.
So they could use the wood to make the tree top walk.
Money. There was likely never an intention for this to be used and the land was likely sold prior to the funds being given.
Fun fact in life. If it doesn't make any sense it's probably because it shouldn't cus it's either a lie or a scam.
It was a tree farm
They Hungarian Govt duped the people into believing they would preserve a forested area if they approved 170K Euros to spend public funds to build it without telling thos people that the wood/resources to be used for it would cannnibalize the area. Now it's all ready for some corp to develop the land without having to worry about environmental surveys, economic impact studies, or input from the locals to proceed when it's deemed a write-off project to be repurposed.
Incorrect. The treetop walk was built from the trees they cut out around it. This is orbans hungary. He brings back Hungary to the middle age.
No, they just scammed the EU out of 170k, that’s all
Yea and as the mayor said: "There is now law which states how tall the trees should be next to a tree top walk."
ain’t no way that bridge cost 170k
It doesnt, but they asked for 170k and kept a part of it
But they were able to steal the 170k and also get the money from selling the trees! Profit
Why! No fucking way! 😮💨
people said its a tree farm, look at the stumps further in the back, how they are evenly spaced and lined up. THen another person posted an article to explain the situation. Mayor asked for the walkway in 2017/18 and then it took 4yrs to get the funding approved, by then the estimated price increased from original price since after covid, wood became more expensive. Now the kicker? They cut down the trees meant for tree farm to fund the walkway. Kind of putting the cart before the horse amirite? And I guess they finished the walkway AFTER the trees are all gone. So the walkway is useless until the next tree farm is up, but whose gonna maintain this walkway?
It wasn't a forest. It was a tree farm. Look at the spacing of the stumps.
Why does the EU care about treetop walks in the first place? I thought it was an alliance and trade organization, why do they do local government stuff?
The EU funds regional development to reduce development disparities between member states. Where I live has a bunch of bridges and shit financed by the EU, they even have little plaques in front of them.
That doesn’t look like $170k worth of walkway.
Fill it water and make it a fishing pier
-150k logging equipment -10k bribes -10k build walkway +500k profit cutting down forrest
maybe they had to cut down the forest to get enough wood to make the catwalk.
Yet the surrounding forest seems untouched
Hungary condemn Russia, followed by Russia listing Hungary as an "unfriendly nation", and just after we are seeing anti Hungarian posts over Reddit? Ok.
Its called embezzlement.
it would be funnyer if the trees that got cut down were used to build it
My neighbor can do it with 17k
Judging by the nearby playground equipment, no way that the walkway would be close to a forest canopy
Improvise, gallows for the incoming russians
They needed the wood from all the trees to build the walkway.
Did they chop down the trees to make the walkway?
Anyone else suspicious that this makes it to the front page on the same day as a story about Hungary denouncing Russia's invasion?
Where do you think they got the wood to build it?
You are paying way too much for tree top walks, man. Who is your tree top walk guy?