FLASH
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Péter Magyar opens the files of the Orbán system, will assets in Albania also be affected?
The fall of Viktor Orbán is not just a power shift in Budapest. It is a blow to the heart of a system that for 16 years built a tight alliance between the state, crony capital and regional political influence. Péter Magyar’s landslide victory on 12–13 April 2026, with a qualified majority in parliament, is being read as a signal for a major institutional and financial purge in Hungary. Reuters reported that Magyar has promised to restore the rule of law, anti-corruption reforms, judicial independence and rapprochement with European investigative structures.
But the new political blow does not stop within Hungary's borders. It raises a question that directly affects Albania: what will happen to the companies that grew up under the shadow of Orbán's rule and were used as tools of influence in the Balkans?
This question becomes even more significant after Direkt36's investigation, which documented that the Hungarian company 4iG did not emerge as an ordinary market success, but as a product of a system where politics, public money, and strategic interests are closely intertwined.
According to the investigation, Orbán himself personally intervened to delay key 4iG deals, while the company benefited from secret state funding and was used as an instrument of Hungarian expansion in strategic sectors, including the Western Balkans. Direkt36 also explicitly mentions expansion into Albania and Montenegro as part of this logic.
Against this backdrop, Albania emerges on the map not as a peripheral market, but as a tangible node of Hungarian influence. The most visible asset is ONE Albania, part of 4iG’s regional structure. The Hungarian group itself has confirmed in its corporate communications that Albania and Montenegro constitute an important part of its organization in the Western Balkans. This means that any political, investigative or financial upheaval in Budapest could have a knock-on effect, not necessarily on the daily functioning of the company in Albania, but on ownership, strategy, transparency and political weight.
Péter Magyar’s statements have made this climate even more heated. According to Reuters, he has announced a program aimed at restoring democratic standards, joining the European Public Prosecutor’s Office and an offensive against corruption that has also blocked EU funds for Hungary. International media also reported that Magyar has spoken of the need to hold accountable those who, according to him, “plundered” the country. This language is not just electoral rhetoric. It warns of audits, investigations and potentially a crackdown on the economic networks that became rich in the Orbán era.
In practical terms, this means that companies linked to the Orbán system are not expected to collapse immediately. But they could be stripped of their political shield. And the moment the shield is lost, the privileges, dubious financing, inflated deals, and the use of business as a tool of foreign policy begin to become more apparent.
For ONE Albania, this is particularly sensitive. Not because the company will close tomorrow, but because it could enter an area of strategic uncertainty: will it remain under the same ownership structure? Will there be audits on the origin of the financing? Will a restructuring of the 4iG group be required? Will the project of Hungarian influence in the Balkans fade? These are real questions that cannot be ignored today.
For Hungarian banking, the picture is calmer, but not completely off the radar. The banking system is more regulated and less politically mobile than telecoms, but if the new government in Budapest opens up major files on favored capital, any significant Hungarian entity abroad could come under scrutiny, if only in terms of reputation.
In Albania, this is an issue that should not be treated as a political rumor, but as a topic of economic and strategic security. Telecommunications is not just a market. It is critical infrastructure, data flow, information control and national sensitivity. When such a company is linked to a group that a serious investigation presents as a product of the political power in Budapest, then the Albanian state has an obligation to look beyond balance sheets and advertisements.
Orbán has fallen. Now the real test is whether his political business model will also fall. And if this model begins to unravel in Hungary, the first echoes in the Balkans can be heard precisely in the assets that were used as bridges of influence, including in Albania./ Pamphlet
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