Malev, the Hungarian airline state company, must find financial resources in four months to return the money received as state aid, aid found to be illegal by the European Commission. The Hungarian government will meet on January 16 to discuss proposals submitted by the Minister for National Development.

Besides the problems that Hungarians have with public transport in Budapest, the Hungarian government must solve the problem of airline-state Malev. The company was privatized in February 2007 but was nationalized in 2010, the Hungarian state holding 95% of shares. One solution, of course, is the state to pull back on sale the majority stake and find an investor to take over the company. It should support the company’s losses and to return the money owed by the company as a result of the sanctions dictated by the European Commission.

For example, in 2010, despite the financial aid from the state, Malev had losses of 25 billion forints. For 2011, is still waiting on Q4 results recorded.

The problem is that Malev now owes 100 billion forints, money illegally received in the form of state aid. “The Commission’s investigation concluded that Malev, considering the difficult financial situation, could not be able to get the financial resources of the financial markets in terms agreed with the Hungarian state,” it said in a statement the European Commission.

Another solution would be a Hungarian government is to make another national company in a public – private partnership with Chinese and European investors, but their names were not released.

According to the Hungarian bankruptcy law aproved in summer 2011, Malev, being a company in a strategic sector of the national economy, could avoid the standard procedure of bankruptcy. This means that the state can sell the best company’s assett to investors to cover it debts without this procedure to be made public. There is concern in Hungary, as Malev would be sold in pieces, that the best asset could be sold at low prices to “certain” investors, to create a new airline, and the rest going to be just scrap and Malev to handle to pay it’s debts as possible.