4 hours ago
7
Hungary’s parliament is considering legislation that would give authorities broad powers to monitor, penalise and potentially ban organisations it describes as a threat to national sovereignty, in a move that opposition politicians warned would allow Viktor Orbán’s government to potentially shut down all independent media and NGOs engaged in public affairs.
The bill, submitted late on Tuesday by a lawmaker in Orbán’s rightwing populist Fidesz party, seeks to expand the authority of the country’s controversial sovereignty protection office.
The draft law would allow the office to recommend the blacklisting of organisations deemed to “threaten the sovereignty of Hungary by using foreign funding to influence public life”.
The legislation takes a broad view of what constitutes a threat, describing it as acts such as undermining Hungary’s constitutional identity or Christian culture or challenging the primacy of marriage, the family and biological sexes.
The bill, which Fidesz is expected to pass in parliament using its two-thirds majority, comes after a February speech in which Orbán vowed to crack down on organisations that receive foreign funding, saying they “have to be taken down, they have to be swept away … it is necessary to make their existence legally impossible”.
Analysts linked the tough tone to the fact that Orbán, who has long faced criticism for weakening democratic institutions and gradually undermining the rule of law in Hungary, is facing an unprecedented challenge from a former member of the Fidesz elite, Péter Magyar, before elections next year.
The bill would also allow authorities to comb through the bank accounts, documents and electronic devices of blacklisted organisations.
These organisations would also be barred from receiving donations via Hungarians’ income taxes – a crucial source of income for many of them – and would need special authorisation to accept foreign funds. Donors to these organisations would have to submit a declaration confirming that their contributions were not sourced from abroad.
If the organisations are found to have used foreign money to threaten Hungary’s sovereignty, they could face fines amounting to 25 times the funds received. Failure to pay within 15 days or repeated offences could result in them being shut down.
Zoltán Kovács, a spokesperson for the Hungarian government, said the bill had been introduced amid worries that foreign-funded organisations were being used to shape the country’s political discourse.
“Investigations and public disclosures in recent years have revealed that millions of dollars, primarily from American and Brussels-based entities, were funnelled into Hungarian civil society groups and media outlets with clear ideological agendas,” he wrote on social media.
According to Hungarian news site Telex, the foreign funds under question include those linked to the European Union.
As details of the draft law emerged on Wednesday, the bill was condemned by opposition politicians.
“With this proposal, they could shut down every independent Hungarian media outlet and shut down every NGO engaged in public affairs,” Márton Tompos, the chair of the opposition Momentum party, wrote on social media.
Since returning to power in 2010, Orbán has continuously targeted NGOs and independent media, manoeuvring to allow his party and loyalists to control 80% of the country’s media and adopting legislation in 2017 that sought to force NGOs receiving more than €24,000 (£20,000) in foreign funding to register with the courts and identify themselves as foreign-funded in their publications.
In 2020, the European court of justice said the restrictions on foreign funding – described by Amnesty International as a “vicious and calculated assault on civil society” – were discriminatory against NGOs and donors.
The government’s efforts ramped up in 2023 with the launch of the sovereignty protection office. Tasked with investigating organisations and media outlets it sees as exerting foreign influence, the office swiftly evoked comparisons to Russia’s “foreign agent” law.
On Wednesday, the comparison was again made by opposition lawmakers. The bill “follows the Russian playbook”, Budapest mayor Gergely Karácsony wrote on social media, while independent lawmaker Ákos Hadházy described it as another step towards the “Putinisation” of Hungary.
Hadházy described the draft bill as part of a broader effort by Fidesz to maintain its grip on power, which began with Hungary’s recently passed ban on public events involving the LGBTQ+ community.
“We have been saying for weeks that the so-called ‘Pride law’ was only the beginning, the first step in a process that will force the entire independent press and NGOs into illegality and may even make politicians and parties impossible,” he wrote on social media.
“If anyone has ever thought that Fidesz wouldn’t dare to do certain things, it is time to wake up!”
