Too many coincidences on a private plane: Lóránt Antal, AKTOR and the PSD's trip to Mykonos

As we have already reported on Ugaron, the Wall Street Journal published a lengthy article on the activities of US Ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle in Greece. Donald Trump's son's former fiancée allegedly boasted to the Greek energy minister at a dinner in Athens in March, referring to the expected fall of Romania's Bolojan government, that the United States "can do this to any country," and that it could do the same in Greece too. The ambassador's lawyer disputes the version of the conversation published by the WSJ, but the Romanian government did indeed fall just over a month later: the PSD withdrew from the cabinet, then together with AUR and other parliamentary groups voted for the motion of no confidence. But that was not the only interesting part of the Wall Street Journal's article. The American paper actually examined Guilfoyle's energy lobbying activity, her push for American LNG in the Balkans, and her rather peculiar relationship with a certain Greek corporate group. That company is AKTOR.

Transylvanian Hungarian media outlets covering the story reported on Guilfoyle's statement, on Trump's associate, on Bolojan and on the fall of the Romanian government, but for some mysterious reason they consistently left out the name AKTOR. They did link to the original American article, but either they didn't read it to the end or they failed to notice that the Greek company doesn't appear there as mere backdrop — in fact the main subject of the WSJ piece is precisely how Guilfoyle helped advance AKTOR's interests across the Balkans. In Bulgaria, for example, the American ambassador advised local officials to cooperate with AKTOR, and energy lobbyist Christos Marafatsos regularly showed up at Guilfoyle's meetings — so often, in fact, that some foreign officials mistook him for the ambassador's chief of staff. Marafatsos, however, is not an employee of the US State Department but one of AKTOR's key lobbyists.

This is where we started to grow suspicious!

Our suspicion arose because only a few weeks earlier we had covered Senator Lóránt Antal's (RMDSZ) trip to Mykonos. As chairman of the Senate's energy committee, Antal travelled to the Greek island by private jet in order to — according to his own explanation and that of his fellow travelers — negotiate with American investors about opportunities in Romania's energy and railway sectors, though the investors' names have still not been disclosed. What's more, on that very same day, while Lóci was saving the world on Mykonos, one of the continent's most important energy conferences was being held in Athens, an event neither Antal nor any other Romanian politician attended. Since God has wired our brains in a sufficiently journalistic way, we looked into what interests AKTOR has in Romania and on Mykonos. Bingo!

AKTOR is a major player in Romania too,
and it has an actual presence on Mykonos

AKTOR is not merely a construction company known in Greece — it has been present in Romania for more than twenty years, and considers the country, after Greece, one of its most important markets: it builds roads, motorways and railway lines, and is currently involved in several major transport projects. One of its most important jobs in Romania is the modernization of the Brașov–Sighișoara railway line, specifically the technically especially complex section between Apața and Cața, which includes two long twin tunnels. The company, however, has long since stopped wanting to remain a traditional construction firm: it is expanding into energy, renewable energy, energy storage, real-estate development and concession businesses.

Together with the Greek state-backed company DEPA Commercial, AKTOR set up a company called Atlantic-SEE LNG Trade. The venture aims to import American liquefied natural gas into Greece and then transport it via the Vertical Gas Corridor through Bulgaria and Romania toward Central Europe, Moldova and Ukraine. In June 2026, Atlantic-SEE doubled the quantity specified in its long-term contract with American LNG producer Venture Global, and according to plans, starting in 2030, at least one million tons of American LNG would arrive in Greece annually for twenty years, and from there flow on to the region's countries. In this system, Romania is not a minor stop but one of the key states on the gas's route north.

Oh, and it also has a €12 million real-estate project.
Pure coincidence that it's on Mykonos...

According to the company's own statements, it is building a 95-room residential complex in Ano Mera on four plots of land it owns, primarily to house seasonal workers employed on the island. AKTOR, then, is not merely theoretically linked to Mykonos: it owns land and has an ongoing project on the very island to which Lóránt Antal and his companions flew to meet supposedly anonymous American investors. This of course does not prove that Lóránt Antal met with representatives of AKTOR, and we are not claiming that it did — but from this point on it was worth revisiting the private jet's passenger list and examining who flew to Mykonos, what sectors they are tied to, and what kind of political network emerges behind them. The result turned out to be even more interesting — as if the passenger list had been hand-picked to match AKTOR's business profile.

The private jet flew out of Bucharest on July 8 and returned the same evening. The trip was organized and paid for by the Romanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, led by Mihai Daraban. The flight documents listed thirteen names, although Nicolae Bănicioiu later said he ultimately did not board. On the plane were:

Senator Lóránt Antal (RMDSZ), chairman of the Senate's energy committee; former Prime Minister Victor Ponta; former Labor Minister Florin Manole; former Transport Minister Ovidiu Silaghi; Constitutional Court judge Cristian Deliorga; Marius Cătălin Croitoru, president of the Constanța Tribunal; Bogdan Mîndrescu, CEO of the state company operating Bucharest's airports; railway magnate Gruia Stoica; chamber president Mihai Daraban; Gabriel Daraban, commercial director of the state-owned Oil Terminal; and Constanța businessmen Florin Cârstocea and Virgil Lixandru. Viewed through the lens of AKTOR's business interests, the list of names appears almost embarrassingly precise.

The railway sector was represented by Gruia Stoica, owner of Grampet and Grup Feroviar Român, former Transport Minister Ovidiu Silaghi, and Bogdan Mîndrescu, a longtime figure in transport administration; Lóránt Antal and Oil Terminal head Gabriel Daraban brought the energy angle; Florin Cârstocea's companies deal in offshore oil rigs, offshore services, ship maintenance, wind farms, real-estate development and tourism. Former Labor Minister Florin Manole was there for labor-law matters, former Prime Minister Victor Ponta lent general political weight, and two high-ranking judges also traveled along with the whole group.

The group's remarkable cohesion was not limited to professional criteria: the vast majority of the passengers were also tied, directly or indirectly, to the PSD's political, state and business network.

• Florin Manole, PSD politician and former minister

• Victor Ponta, former party president and former PSD prime minister

• Nicolae Bănicioiu also began his national political career as a PSD minister.

• Ovidiu Silaghi served as transport minister in Victor Ponta's government

• Cristian Deliorga was appointed to the Constitutional Court in 2019 on the PSD's nomination and with its parliamentary backing

• Gruia Stoica is not only a longtime player in state railway business, but also the godfather of Florin Manole's child.

Mihai Daraban personally chose the group. When asked why he had brought along PSD and RMDSZ politicians in particular, he replied that the liberals happened to be in government at the time, whereas these people "had the time." Lóránt Antal, of course, is perhaps not yet a PSD politician but an RMDSZ one — except that in recent years the RMDSZ governed together with the PSD for a long stretch, and since the fall of the Bolojan government it has helped form or sustain a PSD–AUR–SOS majority in several important parliamentary votes. So the private jet to Mykonos did not carry thirteen independent passengers, but members of a network largely tied to the PSD's political, business and institutional environment: some directly, as party members or former ministers, others through political appointments, state companies, business ties, friendships or family bonds — all fitting into the same circle.

The unknown Americans,
about whom we are meant to know nothing

According to Mihai Daraban, the delegation met on Mykonos with American partners interested in Romania's railway sector, the agricultural machinery market and energy, and they flew to the island to meet them because it was simpler and cheaper than traveling to the United States — but he did not disclose their names, claiming they were still only considering investing in Romania. Lóránt Antal explained his presence by saying that, as chairman of the Senate's energy committee, he briefed the investors on Romanian energy regulation and the sector's opportunities. The meeting, including the meal, lasted one and a half to two hours. When asked for details, he referred journalists to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. So to this day we do not know who sat on the other side of the table, which companies they represented, what Romanian investment interested them, what they asked of the Romanian politicians, what promises they received, or what the outcome of the negotiation was. Nor has Antal publicly reported briefing the Senate's energy committee or the Romanian government after the meeting. And yet he considered the trip so important that he skipped two genuine energy conferences held in Athens on July 8.

The ambassador, the PSD,
and the fall of the Romanian government

Now let's return to the Wall Street Journal article. Kimberly Guilfoyle not only encouraged Balkan governments to cooperate with AKTOR, but also openly supported the regional expansion of American LNG, while the PSD-led Romanian energy leadership was also strongly pushing for American gas imports and the development of the Vertical Gas Corridor. In late March, Guilfoyle met in Bucharest with, among others, Sorin Grindeanu and PSD Energy Minister Bogdan Ivan; a few weeks later the PSD withdrew from the Bolojan government and, together with AUR and other parliamentary groups, brought down the cabinet. We cannot state with one hundred percent certainty that the United States, Guilfoyle or AKTOR ordered the fall of the Bolojan government, but it would be hard to deny that

The story also has a present-day political thread: officially, together with the PNL and USR, the RMDSZ supports Siegfried Mureșan's government, yet Hunor Kelemen does not exactly behave like someone putting all his energy behind the success of a prime-ministerial candidate he himself nominated. Days before the parliamentary vote he was already saying that if there is no majority, Mureșan should rather return his mandate than "collapse into parliamentary hellish noise" with 160–170 votes; in the same statement he also noted that Nicușor Dan already has Sorin Grindeanu's name on his desk, and that if Mureșan fails, it would logically be the PSD president's turn next. So with one hand the RMDSZ signed off on Mureșan's nomination, while with the other it is already gesturing toward handing back the mandate, all while Hunor Kelemen carefully sketches out the path to a Grindeanu government. In the recent period there have been several decisions and parliamentary votes in which the Alliance moved in step with the PSD, and now it seems as if its primary concern is that Mureșan should not successfully reach the point of forming a government. Meanwhile Lóránt Antal, the RMDSZ's energy committee chairman, flew to Mykonos with a delegation almost entirely tied to the PSD's political and business environment, in order to negotiate about energy and railway matters with anonymous American investors.

We're not drawing conclusions,
just counting the coincidences

So let's line up, once more, what we have.

• We have an American ambassador furthering AKTOR's interests, who in March boasted about the expected fall of the Romanian government.

• We have the PSD, which a few weeks later did indeed bring down the Bolojan government.

• We have a private jet whose passengers, almost without exception, are tied directly or indirectly to the PSD's political, business and institutional environment.

• We have a passenger list bringing together figures from railways, energy, offshore, oil, transport, real-estate development and state decision-making — that is, precisely from the sectors in which AKTOR has interests.

• We have Mykonos, where AKTOR has its own project.

• We have Lóránt Antal, negotiating there with anonymous American investors about Romanian energy regulation, while skipping the Athens conference where, on that very same day, AKTOR's chief executive and the American ambassador spoke about the gas corridor running through Romania.

• And finally, we have the RMDSZ, officially backing Mureșan, whose leader is already talking about the candidate stepping down and the PSD's Grindeanu being nominated next.

We are not claiming that all of this is part of a single plan, but after this many coincidences, some questions inevitably come to mind:

• Who were the American investors on Mykonos?

• Which companies did they represent?

• Did AKTOR, Atlantic-SEE LNG Trade, DEPA, Venture Global, or a lobbyist for any of them take part in the meeting?

• Was Christos Marafatsos there?

• Did the discussion touch on the Vertical Gas Corridor, the delivery of American LNG to Romania, any Romanian railway project, the Oil Terminal, or changes to energy regulation?

• What did the investors ask for, and what were they promised?

• Was an official record of the meeting made?

• Did Lóránt Antal report on the meeting to the Senate's energy committee or to the Romanian government?

The speculation could easily be put to rest: simply disclose the names, the subject of the negotiation, and the results achieved. Until then, however, we are left with an anonymous American investor, a passenger list that fits AKTOR's business profile almost perfectly, the PSD's network of connections, a silent RMDSZ senator, and a whole chain of coincidences leaning on one another.

But what a coincidence!?

Anna Karczag