In the middle of fields in western Hungary sits a perfectly constructed roundabout, with no cars, no buildings around, and no immediate utility. A project financed by European funds became, in a few years, a tourist attraction and a reason for political argument. by Seen from the air, the landscape near Zalaegerszeg, a town in western Hungary, offers a scene that is difficult to explain: an elegant circle of well-defined asphalt, surrounded by weeds, mud and silence. No cars drive on it, no trucks use it, and the roads that start from the intersection stop after a few meters, in an open field. You might also be interested: It is the «roundabout to nowhere» – a project made with European funds that has come to symbolize, for many, the way public money can be spent without results, writes CNN. It all started in 2021, when the authorities announced that the area between Zalaegerszeg and Zalaszentiván was to become an important logistics center of Central Europe. The Metrans company intended to build a container terminal that would allow the rapid transport of goods by rail from the Adriatic coast to Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland – an investment of 40 million euros and at least 120 jobs. The local administration acted quickly. With 1.25 million euros from European funds, he built the access road and the roundabout, preparing the ground for the trucks that were to come. The meaning was completed successfully. The rest of the project – no. The tender for the railway that was supposed to make the terminal functional was not finalized even today. In the most optimistic scenario, the construction will be ready in 2029. The investor Metrans refused to start the works on the terminal in the absence of the railway connection. And the roundabout was left alone in the field, waiting for trucks that, at best, will arrive only in five years. Critics of the Orbán government were quick to use the image of the roundabout as an argument in the debate about how Hungary manages European funds – billions of euros frozen by the European Commission due to concerns about the rule of law and corruption. For them, the roundabout is not an isolated error, but part of a larger pattern. The Minister of Regional Development, Tibor Navracsics, declared in front of the parliament that the EU financed 52,000 projects in Hungary in the period 2014-2020. How many of these were completed remains unclear. In the meantime, the roundabout has acquired a life of its own: tourists and the curious flock to the field in Zalaegerszeg to take photos on the deserted asphalt. For now, this is the only traffic it receives.
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