Spain’s far-right party Vox has been hit with record fines of €1.15 million for taking illegal donations, a joint investigation by Infolibre and yours truly shows.
The Spanish Court of Auditors imposed four fines, according to documents we obtained through a freedom of information request.
They’re taking issue with earmarked donations and unidentified cash collected at Vox’s street stalls, later funnelled into party accounts via ATMs. Vox has appealed the decision. The party might face additional fines, as the auditing only covers the years between 2018 and 2020. The years since have not been audited yet.
This comes a few days after Infolibre and Follow the Money revealed that Hungary’s partly state-owned MBH Bank Nyrt granted the party two multimillion-euro loans.
The first loan, worth €6.5 million, was granted in 2023 to bankroll Vox’s national campaign. A year later, they got another €7 million for the European elections.
Vox defends the deals. The party says that “Spanish banks don’t want to negotiate a loan with the country’s third-largest political force”. And yet, the party recently financed its municipal campaign with loans from Spanish banks Santander and BBVA.
But who’s that Hungarian bank behind the murky loans?
Well, Viktor Orbán’s cabinet effectively controls the bank through its economy ministry and billionaire ally Lőrinc Mészáros’s investment network, jointly holding half of the voting rights.
And that bank loves to dole out money to Europe’s far right, it seems. It previously handed out loans to Marine Le Pen’s 2022 presidential bid and counts Austria’s far-right TV channel AUF1 and Hungary’s conservative Mathias Corvinus Collegium among its clients.
Spain’s Court of Auditors acknowledged it has not scrutinised those loans as part of this investigation because MBH Bank Nyrt failed to submit information that they were legally required to provide.