Hungarian Sovereignty Protection Office flags another dangerous organization allegedly serving US Interests
Hungary’s Ökotárs Foundation is “the local distribution centre” of the “political pressure network”, the Sovereignty Protection Office said on Monday.
The office’s statement said the Ökotárs Foundation had been “distributing funds and building networks” for foreign pressure groups in Hungary since 1994.
Most of the foundation’s revenues come from abroad, it said. Initially, Ökotárs had received funding from American foundations like the Ford, Rockefeller and Soros Foundation via a central and eastern European network called the Environmental Partnership Association, and its financing model gradually changed following Hungary’s European Union accession, the statement said.
The office said that most of Ökotárs’s revenues today come from funds allocated by the European Commission, adding that the EC has earmarked 1.5 billion euros towards the “direct financing of political pressure groups” through its Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) scheme.
The Hungarian Sovereignty Protection Office said Anna Donáth, a former MEP of the opposition Momentum Movement, had played a key role in developing this financing model. Over the last two years, close to 18 million euros in CERV money has been transferred to Hungary, close to three-quarters of which had gone to “political pressure groups”, the office said. The Ökotárs Foundation received 3.3 million euros from those funds, which it distributed among “organisations belonging to the foreign pressure network like Amnesty International Hungary, the Helsinki Committee, the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (TASZ)”, the statement said, adding that investigative reporting outfit Átlátszó and news outlet 444 had also received “significant amounts of money”.
The office said Ökotárs had also distributed funds disbursed by the the US embassy in Budapest. It said outgoing US Ambassador David Pressman had announced a call for applications for direct grants to “network actors” in the autumn of 2023, with the Ökotárs Foundation having been put in charge of distributing the funds. More than 115 million forints (EUR 281,000) in US funding was distributed by January 2024 among outlets like Telex, Klubradio, Nyugat.hu, 444, Magyar Narancs, Atlatszo and Tilos Radio, it said.
The Sovereignty Protection Office said it wanted to alert state authorities to the “grave risk” it said “the Ökotárs Foundation and the network covering the entire region” posed to Hungary’s sovereignty.
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Sovereignty Protection Office: Transparency International Hungary activity harmful for country
Transparency International: Sovereignty Protection Office report ‘unlawful’
Transparency International: Sovereignty Protection Office report ‘unlawful’
Transparency International on Tuesday called a report by the National Sovereignty Protection Office on the results of an investigation into the NGO’s activities “unlawful” and riddled with mistakes, misleading statements and “conjectures putting communist … conspiracy theories to shame”.
As we wrote on Monday, the sovereignty protection office noted in a statement that on June 18, it launched a targeted, comprehensive inquiry into the activities of TIM, and found that the assessment of the organisation’s financing, activities and network of relations “prove that it carried out political pressure activities as part of a global lobbying network operating for over thirty years, along the interests of the large powers that stood behind the network”. Read details HERE: Sovereignty Protection Office: Transparency International Hungary activity harmful for country
Transparency International Hungary (TIM) responded that, under the relevant regulations, the report should have been sent to them before publication, and the sovereignty office was obliged to respond to their observations. None of that happened, and the sovereignty office’s “accusations” were published in a manner that “doesn’t even respect the provisions of the law laying the foundations for the office’s operations,” TIM said.
In the report, “the state-funded organisation … fantasises about a global conspiracy led by the US, secret games of espionage between world powers, and, who else, George Soros,” TIM said.
The report also delves into Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI), the statement said. CPI’s methodology is public information, “so there’s no sense in launching an investigation into TIM to obtain information which is already in the public domain.”
“TI Hungary remains what it always has been: a non-partisan NGO uncovering and fighting corruption, striving to further Hungary’s development,” the statement said.
In response to the sovereignty office’s assessment that TIM had not operated transparently, the NGO said its annual Declaration of Public Use was published in accordance with all regulations and voluntarily prepared an audit.
It said TI Hungary and several NGOs had criticised the law on the protection of sovereignty before its adoption and turned to the Constitutional Court with a complaint after the Sovereignty Protection Office launched a “specific investigation” targeted against TI and investigative reporting site Atlas.hu in the summer. It added that TI did so because it considered both the existence of the office and the law establishing it to be unconstitutional.
“TI Hungary is considering taking further legal action against the sovereignty protection office for the error-ridden and groundless findings in the report,” it said.
read also – PM Orbán: George Soros keeps the EU money away from Hungary
Sovereignty Protection Office: Transparency International Hungary activity harmful for country
The Sovereignty Protection Office said on Monday that the Transparency International Hungary Foundation (TIM) carries out activities that are harmful to Hungary, stigmatising the country and state institutions and exerting influence based on disinformation.
The office on June 18, 2024, launched a one-off, comprehensive inquiry into the activities of TIM and found that the assessment of the organisation’s financing, activities, and network of relations proved that it carries out political pressure activities as part of a global lobbying network operating for over thirty years, along the interests of the extensive powers that stand behind the network, a statement said. The World Bank founded the TI network to represent US interests and fulfill its strategic goals.
TIM performs its activities with the involvement of foreign state funding, it said. The main financers of the international network operating the organisation are states that have the largest voting power in the World Bank and the European Commission. Also among significant supporters is the Open Society Foundation linked to US businessman George Soros, it added. More than 80 percent of the organisation’s operations are financed from foreign sources.
The terms “transparency” and “anti-corruption” used to shape public opinion by the international network that stands behind TIM do not serve the clarity of public life and balanced competition between market players but are tools to enforce US economic and political interests, the statement said. The organisation performs activities that are harmful to Hungary, stigmatises the country and state institutions and exerts influence based on disinformation by monopolising these terms.
The primary tool of the organisation is a corruption perceptions index prepared in the Berlin center, which the organisations financing and/or cooperating with TI, and TI itself, can use “manipulatively” to serve their interests best, the Sovereignty Protection Office said. The report prepared by the office shows that the corruption perceptions index and its utilisation possesses all formal characteristics of disinformation, and can be considered disinformation “because it is capable of presenting untrue statements as the truth”, it added.
related article: Transparency International’s shocking finding about corruption in Hungary
The methodology of the corruption perceptions index is “manipulative”, making the index capable of influencing the international assessment of countries, it said. It added that TIM attempts to paint an unfavourable picture of Hungary and Hungarian state administration organisations by communicating this index. “The TIM’s shadow reports containing disinformation prepared for the European Commission cause real political, economic and social damage to Hungary,” the office said.
The “shadow reports” methodology is kept hidden from Hungarian society. At the same time, the “disinformation campaign” built on them attempts to restrict Hungary’s ability to enforce its political and economic interests internationally, the statement said. The “shadow reports” supplied by TIM to accompany rule-of-law reports are suitable for influencing domestic democratic competition, it added.
The Sovereignty Protection Office also said that TIM had refused to cooperate right from the start during the inquiry. “Despite this, based on the analysis of information revealed and an assessment of correlations, the office concluded that the organisation’s operations are not transparent,” it added.
Transparency International Hungary response
As the TIM official site said, Transparency International Hungary’s response in July to the Sovereignty Protection Office inquiry can be found here. The complaint to the Constitutional Court is available here, and the investigation with 62 questions is accessible here.
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PM Orbán: “We do not want to shed blood for Ukraine”
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told participants of the Peace March in Budapest on Saturday that giving up on peace meant “choosing to die for the cause of Ukraine”, but “we do not want to shed blood for Ukraine, we will not go to war, and we will not die for somebody else on foreign soil”, he said.
“Our mission is to stay out of the war”
In a speech delivered on Margaret Island, Orbán endorsed the candidates of the Fidesz-Christian Democrats alliance in the European Parliament election and said that Hungary could only stay out of the war if Hungarian voters backed up the government.
“Do we want to shed Hungarian blood for Ukraine? No! We will not go to war, we will not die for somebody else on foreign soil,” Orbán said in his speech.
Addressing the Peace March, organised by the Civic Union (CÖF) and its foundation CÖKA, Orbán said it would be impossible to hide from the war, and that the only antidote to war was peace.
“Our mission is to stay out of the war and preserve Hungary as an island of peace,” Orbán said.
He said evil was behind world wars and urged people not to give in. The time for exorcism has come, he added.
“Either we win or they win. There is no third way, only a third world war,” he said.
Orbán said there was no solution to the war on the battlefield and called for a ceasefire and peace talks.
Firstly, the election must be won next week, he said. An election victory and reinforcement from every country in Europe would pave the way for the establishment of a European pro-peace coalition in Brussels, he added, stating that a “transatlantic peace coalition” could be established in the autumn “if the Americans elect a pro-peace president”.
Orbán can be in majority?
We were “in the minority” at the start of the year, but could be “in the majority” by year-end, he said.
Referring to the European Parliament and local elections to be held on June 9, he said God had created the world in six days and commanded rest on the seventh, but now unfortunately “we must not rest even on the seventh day”, “we must put the pedal to the metal”. “Victory will come only if we all go to vote. Only peace! Only Fidesz!”, he added.
Orbán said there were already enough pro-war politicians in Brussels, so the candidates of Fidesz-Christian Democrats, headed by Tamas Deutsch, needed to “occupy Brussels”.
“We need our own kind there, who don’t believe in war and violence, but believe in the power of love and solidarity,” he added.
He said the 2022 victory of Fidesz-Christian Democrats in national elections had “raised the price of Hungarian shares on the political bourses of every capital in Europe”. Although those shares are in demand, they are not for sale, not to Brussels, not to Washington and not to George Soros, he added.
Orbán wished Fico speedy recovery
In a message to ethnic Hungarians in Transcarpathia, in the west of Ukraine, Orbán said the day was not far off when “your destiny will take a turn for the better”.
He also sent his regards and wished a speedy recovery to “Slovakia’s pro-peace Prime Minister” Robert Fico, adding that Fico had been shot because he stood on the side of peace, “practically giving his life for peace”. He said Fico was “carved of hard wood” and would return to put Slovakia and Hungary side by side in the fight for peace.
Orbán said the ruling parties’ victory in the European Parliament election needed to scare the Brussels bureaucrats out of their offices.
He noted that Fidesz-Christian Democrats had won all elections since the autumn of 2006, including parliamentary, local council and European elections. “We have won eleven times in one go. An absolute record, a KO, an undisputable victory,” he added.
Orbán said that the Fidesz-Christian Democrats camp was the largest, most unified and most hardened camp in all of Europe, and the ruling parties were able to campaign most successfully, theirs being the largest election army.
“Never before have so many people lined up for peace, because the only purpose of the Hungarians’ election army is to preserve peace,” he said. “We are Europe’s largest legion of peace, we are Europe’s greatest peace-preserving force,” he added.
“On the verge of a huge victory”
Orbán said the Fidesz-Christian Democrats were again “on the verge of a huge victory”.
Orbán said Fidesz had a “great chance” to score a goal, but still had to take the shot. Having a routine is an advantage in government work, but during a campaign “routine is poison, routine kills”, he added.
He said a good campaign needed a common cause and a successful campaign required heart, while passion was necessary for a winning campaign. Victory on paper doesn’t exist in politics, he added.
“Another week of hard work, the legendary Fidesz finish, and we will push the enemy off the field,” he said. He added that the task at hand was greater than ever before: to prevent Europe from rushing into war and to its ruin.
He said Europe was making preparations for war and that “every day another stretch of the road to hell is inaugurated”, pointing to initiatives involving hundreds of billions of euros for Ukraine, the deployment of nuclear weapons in the middle of Europe, the conscription of young men into a foreign army, NATO’s Ukraine mission and units of European soldiers in Ukraine.
No break on the pro-war train
“It appears that the pro-war train has no brakes, and the engine driver is insane,” he said, adding that stopping that train was at stake in the EP elections.
He said the Hungarian government knew how to do this and noted that it had earlier decoupled the “Hungarian carriage” from the pro-migration “train” and rescued Hungarian children from the hands of gender activists.
We won’t allow our children and our grandchildren to be shipped to the Ukrainian front, either, he said. “No migration, no gender, no war,” he added.
Every vote cast for Fidesz-Christian Democrats in the European Parliament election “saves lives”, he said. Every vote for Fidesz-Christian Democrats increases the weight of the pro-peace side and affirms Hungary’s decision to stay out of the war, he added.
“We can only stay out of the war if ours will be the biggest election victory in Europe,” he said.
If the left-wing wins, he added, it would only be a matter of time before the war caught up with Hungary.
Orbán said the pro-war side was “beyond common sense” and wanted to beat Russia, just as was attempted in the first and second World War, and was even ready to clash with the entire East.
Hungarians have no business on the Russian front
He likened the intoxication of war to a drug that removes all responsibility and said the pro-war side was “uninterested in the future of your children”.
“They can’t be won over, so we won’t win them over, we will defeat them,” he added.
He said the founding fathers of the EU were right in believing the continent could not bear another war. As for Hungary, “we can gain nothing in war but stand to lose everything”, he added.
He noted that the lives of one and a half million Hungarians had been lost in the first and second World War and wondered “how strong our country would be” if they hadn’t died.
“I will say it slowly, so they understand in Brussels, too: We will not enter the war. We will not march east for the third time, we will not return to the Russian front, we’ve been there before, and we have no business there,” he said.
“We will not sacrifice Hungarian youth for the profit of wartime speculators,” he added.
Orbán said that George Soros had written the “script” for a victory over Russia using Western weapons and Eastern European troops, then replacing the lives lost with migrants, 30 years earlier. He added that the Hungarian left wing were “payrolled” by Soros.
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PM Orbán: “we are fighting against the Soros empire”
The most important question concerning the European Union migration and asylum package is whether those that want to come to Europe can stay in EU territory while their application is being processed or they must wait outside the EU borders until a decision is made, the Hungarian prime minister said in Brussels on Tuesday. He also said he was fighting the Soros empire.
Viktor Orbán told a public discussion held in the European Parliament with former Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki, and Fabrice Leggeri, the former head of Frontex and leader of the French right-wing National Rally (RN) party’s list that as long as this question was not answered, no measures linked to migration would work.
Regardless of what proposals are made in connection with the EU’s migration package, the issue of where the applicants stay while their request is being assessed must be answered, Orbán said. “This is a red line. If this is not done, everything else remains unresolved,” he said.
“If we are not brave enough to say that everyone must stay outside the borders while a decision is being made on their application, then no matter what other decision is made, that will not work,” he added.
Orbán said that if the approval of the migration package does not require unanimous support, only majority support at the vote, then the entire pact would not work and its implementation would be stymied. The European Commission has taken Hungary to the EU’s court because it considered the Hungarian migration regulations not to comply with EU law, Orbán said. “But Hungary has resisted and will continue to fight,” he added.
Fighting the Soros empire
Orbán said that “one must not forget about the Soros plan which is aimed at organising migration”. “We are fighting against an organised group which is called the Soros empire,” he added. “The Soros empire was paying civil organisations to attack Hungary’s legal system and carried out unlawful activities against Hungary,” he added.
Orbán said the way US businessman George Soros got involved demonstrated how the EU operated.
“This is against us and about how to change Europe; and how to get rid of Christian, conservative, national political leaders and voters, and how to make them insignificant,” he said.
Orbán said the liberals and communists were close to each other because they both liked centrally controlled bureaucratic procedures instead of believing in freedom. He said experience in central Europe showed that former communists could easily turn into liberals.
EU blackmailing member states because of migration?
Speaking about the EU’s policy, Orbán said that the past five years had been dedicated to implementing goals of the current leadership. “Green transition has failed because it has gone against economic and industrial evidences,” said Orbán. He said green transition must not be “politically motivated”, adding that if the opposite was the case, “it would destroy the competitiveness of the European economy”. “That is where we stand today,” he said.
As regards the economic impacts of the war in Ukraine, “decisions may be taken despite all good-will” on measures that could cause difficulties in the European economy “which is prevalent already in the case of farmers,” said Orbán.
The EU should define “what it should do with the issue of the war” in order to find a solution and prevent further crises, Orbán said, adding that it should be handled separately from the issue of Ukraine’s EU integration as much as possible.
Concerning the EU’s Resilience and Recovery Facility (RRF), Orbán said that Hungary had not received “a single penny” from the funds until now, adding that the fund had become “a tool of blackmail” because of its migration policy.
He said every comprehensive initiative of the current leadership of the EU had failed and he called for the “departure” of current EU leaders in office.
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PM Orbán: Washington and the Soros empire tell Brussels what to do
Brussels’ affairs must be put in order and the European Parliament elections next year will offer a good opportunity for that, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told publisher Mediaworks in an interview published on the occasion of Christmas on Saturday.
More will be at stake at the upcoming ballot than ever before, Orbán said. “The EU has gradually weakened over the past years, its scope of influence has narrowed in the global economy, it has been unable to substantially move forward in boosting its self-defence capabilities and to tackle the conflicts in its vicinity in line with its own interests,” he said. The EU, Orbán said, “has even been incapable of confronting all those problems then conducting introspection and correcting its policy”. He said behind all this was that “it is Washington and the Soros empire, not the member states or European citizens, who keep telling Brussels bureaucrats what to do”. “This is bad for Europe, this must be changed.”
Concerning the issue of Ukraine’s EU integration and the related recent summit in Brussels, Orbán said that he had consistently represented Hungary’s position that starting accession talks was “a bad idea”.
Asked if mulling over whether he might have been wrong, Orbán said “Hungarian politics is able to continuously evaluate its position”. He said he had been lamenting on “who was going against the tide” and had concluded that it had been the member states that had voted in favour of starting accession talks.
Orbán noted serious economic problems that had already emerged in two areas in connection with Ukraine. One, he said, was the damage caused by Ukrainian grain to farmers and hauliers in Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The other, he said, was the absence of any preliminary studies on the impact Ukraine’s future membership could have on French, German or Hungarian farmers, small entrepreneurs, retailers, hauliers and on member states’ economies in general.
26 countries want Ukraine to become an EU member
The prime minister said that although EU integration is a long procedure, all member states have the possibility “around seventy times” to either slow down or stop it, but the decision at last week’s summit in Brussels “means that 26 countries want Ukraine to become an EU member”. He said basic questions had not been answered because “many thought that the decision was just a political gesture, of a geopolitical nature”.
Asked whether he was concerned that his supporters “were completely fed up with the EU”, the prime minister said he “accepted that as a natural fact”. “I myself am fed up with Brussels,” he said, adding that “the question is however what conclusions are drawn from the situation”. Orbán said the conclusion he drew was this: “let’s try to go deeper, take positions, gather allies and fix the European Union”. “Being angry is not enough, Brussels must be conquered,” he said.
Put to him whether financially supporting Ukraine would be the right decision considering that it is an important neighbour, a country attacked by Russia and fighting for its survival, Orbán said it was a legitimate question which he said was one to be considered by Hungary’s parliament. “All we can say today is that any member state wanting to give Ukraine money should do so outside the EU budget and not by giving out our [Hungary’s] money.”
Transcarpathian Hungarians key to improve bilateral ties
Asked about “bad relations between Hungary and Ukraine” over the past years, the prime minister said he had rethought that question several times and expressed his firm position that Hungary bore no responsibility for that. He attributed the deterioration of bilateral relations to Ukraine’s scrapping in 2015 the law that guaranteed the rights of the country’s Hungarian community to exist as a national minority.
The rights of Transcarpathian Hungarians to their culture, education in Hungarian and the broader use of their mother tongue have been scrapped eight years ago, Orbán said, calling on Ukraine to restore those rights which he said would be a starting point for improving bilateral ties.
Asked about the recent agreement reached by the European Parliament and the European Commission on the EU’s new migration and asylum pact, the prime minister said that an earlier given word on taking decisions only with an unanimous vote had been broken and the position of Hungary and Poland ignored. Orbán called it “a bad pact”, arguing that the only solution in the issue of migration was to process asylum requests before an applicant enters EU territory.
Hungarian law, over which Brussels is suing the country, stipulates this rule, he said. Orbán said his efforts over the past eight years to make other member states understand the concept had failed. “They in fact want, as they say, to manage, not stop migration,” said Orbán. He said that in the legal procedure Hungary will face for “not executing what Brussels says” Hungary “will prove that the EU rule for allowing in people whose application had not been preliminary processed and requiring us to take over migrants already accepted in by other member states goes against the Hungarian basic law”.
Hungary’s goal is to keep its economy going
Speaking about Hungary’s economy, Orbán said its performance this year had to be assessed in light of events over the past four years which included the coronavirus pandemic, followed by the war in Ukraine causing energy prices to soar. He said that as a result of the EC’s policy of sanctions, inflation also skyrocketed. Orbán said that since the outbreak of Covid in spring 2020, Hungary’s goal was to keep its economy going. “We have achieved that goal,” the prime minister said, adding that despite the difficulties, Hungary was now in a position to be in a lot better situation with good prospects for 2024.
Orbán said “the nature of 2024 will be different than that of the previous years”. In 2023 the goal was to reduce price increases to below ten percent which he said had been achieved. The prime minister said it was even possible that inflation would fall to seven percent by the end of the year and could be around five percent in 2024. “In 2023 we fought to maintain and protect what we had achieved before, but in 2024 we will work for Hungary to move forward, to be in a better shape, and put families once again in the centre,” he said.
Orbán said he believed that “the past couple of years in which we have overcome various crises and mastered dangers have strengthened our confidence and self-esteem”. “We are a talented, hardworking nation capable of overcoming hardships, a community that never gives up the hope even in the most difficult times that better times are to come,” the prime minister said.
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PM Orbán: George Soros keeps the EU money away from Hungary
“The people of George Soros keep blackmailing the European Commission to withhold money from Hungary because they want Ukraine to get that money,” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said late on Thursday.
The money Hungary is entitled to is 32 billion euros overall, Orbán said in an interview to commercial Hir TV.
“Hungary has now collected 10 out of the 32 billion, but we need to get the remaining 22 billion,” he said, and added that there was a “great likelihood” that the 22 billion euros “could be considered as a resource secured”.
“If this money is sent to Ukraine, and if it goes like the US foreign secretary has said, 90 percent of the total landing with American companies, then it is not such a bad deal for them,” he said. The current “loud wailing” has been triggered by “the total amount having diminished by 10 billion euros, which the EC had to give to Hungary”, he added.
Concerning the EU, Orbán said Hungary did not want to leave the community because its basic principles were good, but it “wants to take over political control in Brussels, it wants to occupy the EU”.
He said the cooperation of European people, the common market, and “combining each others’ strengths while attending to each others’ weaknesses” were good ideas that could serve Hungary’s intererests well.
At the same time, he said there was no need to establish a “superstate” that would treat its members as “provinces”.
“We don’t need a Brussels like that, but one that supports the nations’ self-respect and sovereignty and allows countries to decide how they want to live depending on their own cultural traditions,” he said. “One that controls the market but does not want to say how a Pole, a Hungarian, or a Portuguese should live,” he added.
“The upcoming European parliamentary elections should be won and political control in Brussels should be taken over,” he said.
EU: new, united superstate
Decision makers in Brussels “think that the era of nations is over” and the EU should operate as a “new, united superstate” … they also think that the Hungarian concept of the family … is paleolithic and the world is about same-sex marriages and live experiments of sex change,” Orbán said. According to the prime minister “they think it is good if Europe’s borders are not protected … and all the needy of the world should come to Europe, and mix with indegenous peoples to create a new civilisation,” he addded.
The EU has in recent years “weakened and lost its ability to act … it has become infinitely bureaucratic, cumbersome, and divided … that is the explanation why it has not yet given membership to the countries of the Western Balkans , though their accession would be geographically justified,” Orbán said.
EU members striving to do business with China, Vietnam, and Russia
On the subject of cooperation with China, Orbán said “there is a long queue of EU members striving to do business with China, Vietnam, and Russia … they are attacking us because they want to leave us out, they don’t want competition.” It is in Hungary’s interest to offer an opportunity “for the East and the West to meet on its territory and in its culture … even if Hungary is an EU and NATO member … we must be a bridge,” Orbán said.
Concerning EU aid to Ukraine, Orbán said “we can talk about it, since that country has been attacked and has serious problems, and though it has not treated (ethnic) Hungarians well, even tormented them, in a situation like this they could still be given financial aid”. He added, however, that “it is not clear why we should make a decision on 50 billion euros for four years in advance, when we do not know what will happen in the front line even in two months’ time.”
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Orbán’s ally: Soros playing anti-Semitism card yet again – UPDATED
The co-ruling Christian Democrats (KDNP) said on Thursday that the Soros-led Open Society Foundations “is again playing the anti-Semitism card” against the Hungarian government in connection with its current poster campaign.
In connection with the ongoing National Consultation public survey billboards and posters displayed in public places showing images of Alex Soros and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, KDNP said in a statement: “As ever, when it comes to Hungary’s sovereignty and the National Consultation … Brussels unelected bureaucrats and the Soros organisations controlling them cry anti-Semitism and accuse Hungary of xenophobia.”
“It’s the left’s well-known trick: accuse your opponent of doing what in fact you yourself are doing,” it added. The party insisted that radical left-wing organisations supported by Soros and his foundations were behind demonstrations “sweeping through western European capitals which often openly celebrate the Hamas terrorist organisation”.
The Hungarian government has maintained zero tolerance of anti-Semitism and xenophobia since coming to power in 2010, the statement said, adding that Hungary was “one of Europe’s safest countries … in the world for Jews”. “We reject the left’s accusation of anti-Semitism,” it said, insisting that left-wingers themselves were “landlords of anti-Semitism”.
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UPDATE: Joint statement on anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim bigotry
Zsolt Németh, the head of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, welcomed on Friday a joint statement on anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim bigotry issued by US Senator Ben Cardin, chairman of the senate foreign relations committee, and 23 European foreign affairs committee chairs.
In the statement, the chairs condemn the “alarming rise” in anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim bigotry in their countries following Hamas’s attack against Israel last month. The statement is signed by the foreign affairs committee chairs of Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, the European Parliament, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Ukraine.
PM Orbán: It is high time the West learnt that you cannot live in lies
“Hungary today is the voice of the people of Europe,” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told a conference organised by the Századvég Foundation on Monday.
Hungary’s sovereignty solely in Hungarians’ interest
“Hungary is the only country that speaks the thoughts of Hungarians and Western Europeans,” he told the conference on sovereignty. “The time has come for change in Europe and for Europeans to take back European institutions.”
Concerning the history of Századvég, Orbán said the institute was founded 30 years ago, “but the concept had been born much earlier, in the mid-1980s, when Szazadveg, a periodical, was issued,” noting his own participation.
“This generation decided not to pretend anymore” and expressed its hatred of communism, he added. “We wanted the communists to fail and the Soviets to pull out of Hungary. and a periodical seemed to be a good idea, as free life begins with free speech and free speech starts with free writing,” he said. “Freedom will bring further freedoms and create free people, that was the philosophy of Századvég.” He said his generation had been “the most inexperienced and the most radical” of all other opposition movements of the time.
The foundation of Századvég was “a story of the heart and the love for the homeland”, he said, adding that “I would like it to stay like that.”
Orbán with Soros
Orbán suggested that back then, they had been on the same side with US financier George Soros, because “he also did not want Hungary to be ruled by communists, and supported anti-communist activities”.
“It was not yet clear that he wanted to be the one to rule central Europe instead of the communists and Soviets. We could not be aware of that,” Orbán said. “Now he no longer conceals his plans. He crashed the British pound, he is flooding Europe with migrants, he will openly say that national borders should be abolished and Europe’s countries stripped of their sovereignty,” he added.
As for Századvég, Orbán said the institute was needed as an “intellectual workshop, a civic research centre that supports us”.
It was clear to everyone in 1993 that “Fidesz exists and will exist”, but the return of the communists then posed a serious intellectual challenge. “The real twist in the entire story, which also made our lives intellectually more difficult, was that the door where they entered had been opened by freedom-loving liberals,” he added.
“Nobody is surprised about that here now because it is natural in Western Europe that the liberals are the new communists,” but in 1993-94 it caused “a moral shock” that shook the entire Hungarian political system because “decent people at that time found this odd, to say the least”.
“As a result, we had to get strong and there had to be an intellectual workshop, which is why Századvég was created 30 years ago,” he said.
The lesson in 2002 election
Orbán said the lesson learned from the 2002 election defeat was that “we believed that if we live in a democracy, nothing threatens us anymore”. “We thought the nation has sovereignty, it is ours, and everyone will serve that at home and respect it from the outside,” he added.
“The world around us is not interested in Hungary remaining a sovereign country. They will be better off if we partially or fully lose our sovereignty,”
he said, adding that even some Hungarians thought that way. Hungary, he said, could not be sovereign as long as public thinking was dominated by “a liberal hegemony”.
“This does not mean that we should eliminate what belongs to our adversaries. What we want is pluralism in Hungary,” he said.
“In the West, they have not understood this; public thinking there is unable to step out of the liberal framework,” he added.
The Hungarian political system stands closer to a democratic way of thinking than the Western European does, he said.
“Liberals do not care about the people; their thinking focuses on an ideology and not the community of people,” he added.
Orbán said Hungary’s international influence was “greater than its real weight” because “Europeans can now express their opinion via Hungary rather than their own publicity”.
“It is high time the West learned that you cannot live in lies because it will make you sick and destroy you,” he said.
Meanwhile, he said “lost sovereignty was in the focus of the last century”, while Hungary’s sovereignty was regained at the end of the century and “this decade is about retaining that sovereignty”.
Hungary continues to rely on Századvég’s help, “especially the young generation”, Orbán said. “We recaptured sovereignty and now it is up to young people to retain it.”
Soros foundation leaves, Hungarian Liberal flagship NGOs in a mess?
Alex Soros, the heir of the Soros empire, has decided to relocate the majority of their activities from the European Union. As a result, many Hungarian liberal NGOs and rights activists may find themselves in a difficult situation since they cannot hope for help from the conservative Orbán cabinet.
According to G7, a Hungarian economy news outlet, Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF) is to remove much of its support and activities from the European Union. Globally, they will lay off 40% of their employees. According to the organisation’s spokesman, they have already informed their Hungarian partners about the decision.
OSF will restructure its activity targeting East Europe and the Balkans, Africa and the Middle East. Among the victims are many EU organisations and programmes. Having said that, they will still continue to support some programmes, e.g. Roma projects, but most of their initiatives will be ceased. In 2018, they had already closed down their office in Budapest due to the harsh blows of the Orbán government and relocated it to Berlin. Now they will dismiss 80% of their employees from that bureau.
Read also:
- Orbán: liberal world press, George Soros and Brussels bureaucrats are the opponents
- Soros’s message: Hungarians can outvote an autocrat in 2022 – VIDEO
OSF supports Hungarian programmes and NGOs with more than 2-3 billion forints (EUR 5,170,024-7,755,036) annually. In 2020, they distributed USD 6.8 million (HUF 2.4 billion – EUR 6,204,029) in Hungary. That is a large sum of money, and those organisations and programmes do not have good chances to receive national funds. The NGOs concerned are e.g. the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, TASZ, Political Capital, Rosa Parks Foundation and Transparency International Hungary. The list G7 made is not complete because OSF doesn’t share a register of the Hungarian organisations that received financial support. But the organisations on the top of the list were granted 2-2.3 million dollars in the last five years, which is a significant amount.
Orbán sceptic about Soros’s withdrawal: only when the last “soldier” leaves!
According to hvg.hu, the Soros foundations support independent Hungarian media outlets like Átlátszó, 444.hu and Direkt36. In the case of Átlátszó, the support is 20-30% of their annual budget. Between 2016 and 2021, more than 90 Hungarian NGOs and programmes received financial support from the Soros empire, including Orbán’s former István Bibó College. Balázs Orbán, the prime minister’s political director, said he would only believe in the “withdrawal of the occupying forces when the last Soros soldier left”.
Interestingly, the first Soros foundation was created in Hungary in 1984. However, George Soros intended to cease its operation in 2003 as he believed the foundation had accomplished its objectives. In the end, he decided otherwise. Political pressure increased after the 2015 migrant crisis when the Orbán cabinet called him public enemy nr 1 in Hungary who is responsible for the arrival of the hundreds of thousands of migrants aiming towards Germany and West Europe. Last December, George Soros passed OSF to his heir, Alex Soros, who made the decision to concentrate on non-EU countries.
Alex Soros and Bill Clinton:
Orbán believes EU wants to set up ‘migrant ghettos’
The European Union wants to oblige Hungary to set up “migrant ghettos” and take in up to 10,000 migrants each year, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Friday.
Orbán told public radio in an interview that the government would fight such plans and refuse to carry them out.
He called it “revolting” that a decision on the migration quota system had been “forced through” the council of EU interior ministers “like a coup”.
The prime minister said the Soros network likely stood in the background of the decision. Referring to US financier George Soros having transferred control of his network of NGOs to his son, he said that after the “change of guard” a new generation was now politically more active.
Below is his interview from this morning:
Orbán: ‘Soros empire’ behind EU migrant quota
In an interview to public radio, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has accused the “Soros empire” of being behind the “coup-like” EU decision on mandatory migrant quotas, saying the decision had been “forced down the throats of the majority of Europeans”.
In the interview recorded on Thursday, he said it had seemed that decision-makers in Brussels had been persuaded to shift from an insistence on mandatory quotas to border protection as there was a realisation that the solution lay in protecting the external borders of Europe rather than distributing migrants.
“But from time to time a quick decision is made in a coup-like way that states that whichever country does not allow migrants in will be forced to do so,” Orbán said, adding that it was not by chance this coincided with George Soros handing over “control of his empire to his son just a few days ago”. (We wrote about this in more detail HERE.) His son, he added, had said he wanted to get more directly involved in politics in America and Europe. “Now the Soros empire has struck back,” he added.
Orbán: Government ready with economic protection action plan
The government is ready with an economic protection action plan aimed at counterbalancing “bad decisions” made in Brussels, PM Viktor Orbán said in an interview to public radio on Friday, adding that the measures will be unveiled next week.
The prime minister slammed the EU for introducing costs on fuels and packaging, saying the new measures would stoke inflation. Noting that the EU had control over certain types of tax on environmental grounds, he said Hungary was obliged to increase excise tax on petrol and diesel. Also, packaging materials and bottles must be registered and tracked, adding to expenses and the cost of waste processing.
He also urged Hungarians to keep their savings in state bonds. “In times of war, people who keep their savings in government bonds and treasury bills help the country.” Also, they received a higher interest rate than by parking their money in the bank, he said. In addition to offering high interest on government bonds, a levy on bank savings will apply as long as the war lasts as a temporary measure, he said.
The West is fuming after Orbán’s reaction to the retirement of George Soros
News broke over the weekend that George Soros had handed over control of his USD 25 billion business to his son Alexander Soros. Obviously, the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán could not let this slide without adding his own opinion. He did so with only two words and a GIF, but it prompted many politicians all over the EU to react as well.
Alexander Soros took over the leadership of the Open Society Foundations from his father George Soros in December. He is the only family member of the Soros Fund Management investment committee, which oversees the foundation and the family’s money, napi.hu reports. Alexander Soros told The Wall Street Journal that he and his father are like-minded, but that he would like to take up other causes, such as supporting voting rights, abortion rights and gender equality.
Orbán reacted, Pressman did not let it pass without a word
The Hungarian Prime Minister reacted to the news with an iconic scene from the film The Godfather:
Soros 2.0https://t.co/RcysjQ92xw pic.twitter.com/CYBMFrKjiy
— Orbán Viktor (@PM_ViktorOrban) June 12, 2023
The US Ambassador to Hungary, David Pressman, posted the following on Twitter:
The dog-whistle conspiracy theories are like the plot of Godfather 3: predictable & troubling. https://t.co/RGYtJ0DZRs pic.twitter.com/Teaybp3lGT
— Ambassador David Pressman (@USAmbHungary) June 12, 2023
Others also criticised Orbán
Michael Roth, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the German Bundestag and member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), wrote on his Twitter page, “Just disgusting, Mr. Orban is a shame for Europe”.
Just disgusting. Mr. Orban is a shame for Europe. https://t.co/X4GXdtl7Hv
— Michael Roth – official 🇪🇺🇺🇦 (@MiRo_SPD) June 12, 2023
Daniel Freund, German Green MEP, also criticised the PM’s unusual reaction. “Look at this tweet. And then tell me who’s the mobster,” he wrote in his post.
Look at this tweet. And then tell me who’s the mobster. https://t.co/s9msmCdPOo
— Daniel Freund (@daniel_freund) June 12, 2023
What is more, Politico even accused the Hungarian government of spreading an anti-Semitic narrative.
We reported earlier today that according to Latvia’s new President, Edgars Rinkēvičs, Hungary is not the main obstacle to Ukraine’s NATO accession. Read the full article HERE.
George Soros skips the annual meeting of global elite in Davos – why?
Once again, the world elite gathered in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum conference. They discussed the most important international issues, with war and climate change at the centre of the talks. People, however, are more concerned about those who missed the meeting. George Soros is one of them. People have made up some stories as to why he missed the conference. Some conspiracies are absolutely mind-blowing.
Where is George Soros?
This is one question that is on the minds of the public in connection with the World Economic Forum (WEF) conference in Davos, rtl.hu reports. The absence of the billionaire is odd because in previous years, Soros has been a regular participant at the conference. He has also given speeches.
Due to an unavoidable scheduling conflict, regrettably I cannot attend the @WEF Annual Meeting in Davos this year as I have in past years. I plan to deliver a speech in Munich on the eve of the @MunSecConf. Details to come.
— George Soros (@georgesoros) January 10, 2023
This year, he missed the forum due to an “unavoidable scheduling conflict”. In the wake of this, right-wing conspiracy theorists have begun theorising that the billionaire has taken an important step on the road to a new world order and that “something is up”.
Republican candidate James Bradley of California reacted to Soros’ announcement. He tweeted “Something is up…” and several of his party colleagues suggested that the billionaire might be about to take some drastic action. But what? The ‘answer’ was not provided by party people, but by right-wing opinion leaders, rtl.hu writes. According to Josh Read, head of the Redpill Project, “a major security or terror crisis could be on the cards in Davos this week”.
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Hungarian foreign minister Szijjártó was there
However, Péter Szijjártó was present at the conference. He represented the Hungarian government in Davos for the first time during his time in office. The foreign minister spoke about the conflict between East and West. He pointed out that cooperation has become a “distant dream”. “Our government clearly does not represent the liberal mainstream, but is right-wing, patriotic and Christian-democratic, which is not a common phenomenon in Europe.” According to him, “the liberal mainstream will therefore always criticise the leadership, but it must be respected that the last four elections have been won by the governing parties by a landslide”.
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Fidesz MEP: Soros has bought the Hungarian opposition
The EU’s sanctions on Russian energy resources will have “catastrophic consequences” for the entire bloc, but little effect on Russia itself, an MEP of ruling Fidesz told public broadcaster Kossuth radio on Monday morning.
“When the Hungarian government expressed its doubts on the sanctions, if faced massive attacks in Hungary, in Europe and worldwide,” Tamás Deutsch said, adding that the Hungarian political left supported sanctions “to an extreme extent”.
Meanwhile, energy prices skyrocketed after the sanctions were introduced, and Russia had a record 158 billion euro revenue from energy exports, 85 billion of which was paid by the EU, Deutsch said. “While the EU is now buying less energy, it is paying more for it, inflation is soaring, and ensuring energy security is becoming more difficult,” he said.
Asked about reports that the Hungarian opposition had received 2 billion forints (EUR 5m) worth of dollars in funding from abroad for its election campaign, Deutsch said the left had breached election rules banning foreign campaign financing.
“It is not difficult to draw the conclusion that George Soros has bought the Hungarian opposition which has never regained its independence since its election defeat,” he said.
Read alsoThe American host spoke to George Soros in Hungarian
The American host spoke to George Soros in Hungarian
Fox News host, Steve Hilton sent a message to George Soros in Hungarian. On the network’s Next Revolution show, Hilton invited Soros, who supports liberal causes, to Los Angeles.
“Come here to Los Angeles and tell this to the families who have lost sons, daughters, fathers, mothers!” That’s what Fox News host Steve Hilton told George Soros on Next Revolution.
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Soros is a familiar name in American public life. The billionaire businessman has been in the news lately for his large contributions to the election of liberal-minded prosecutors.
Steve Hilton, also of Hungarian descent, was involved with Soros after a recent article about Soros in the Wall Street Journal. In it, he calls the prosecutors he supports reformers, hirado.hu reports.
“Instead of writing articles from the safety of your billion-dollar fortress, listen to what I say as one Hungarian to another Hungarian.” The presenter then turns Hungarian and calls Soros to Los Angeles.
You can watch the video HERE!
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Migration reaches ‘new level of danger’, says Hungarian FM Szijjártó in Serbia
Migration pressure at Hungary’s southern border has reached a “new level of danger”, the foreign minister said in Subotica (Szabadka), in northern Serbia, after meeting Nikola Selakovic, his Serbian counterpart on Monday.
Péter Szijjártó insisted that migrants were “increasingly aggressive and violent”, adding that “they now have weapons and they use them”.
Szijjártó said Europe was facing “dramatic challenges” including a “permanent inflationary environment” due to the war in Ukraine and sanctions against Russia.
“The migrant crisis is aggravating… and Hungary has to face that challenge presenting itself as pressure from the south and the east at the same time,” he said.
As we wrote on the weekend, Afghan and Pakistani migrants clashed in a forest close to the Hungarian-Serbian border yesterday night, details: One dead after migrants’ armed clash near the Serbian-Hungarian border
He told a joint press conference that as a result of the increasingly intensive war in Ukraine, the number of migrants at Hungary’s eastern borders was growing, with over 10,000 refugees arriving daily, totaling over 820,000 so far.
“Concurrently, the pressure of migration is growing. More than 110,000 illegal migrants have been stopped at our southern border so far,” he said and added that increasingly violent migrants carrying guns posed a security threat for both Serbia and Hungary. “We must make it clear that this is not a human rights issue,” he said. “I would like to make it clear that these people attacking our police and acting aggressively in Serbia, shooting guns, have no right whatsoever to enter Hungary’s territory,” he added.
Szijjártó said the migrants had been crossing through safe countries and violated several borders, which means that they arrived in Serbia by committing a series of crimes and “nobody has the right to act this way”. The situation will get increasingly serious because the war in Ukraine results in the threat of famine at several locations in the world, he said. “The food supply crisis will most probably put a more serious migratory pressure on Serbia and Hungary alike. As a result, I believe we are in the last hour that Brussels and NGOs linked to [US financier] George Soros should stop encouraging migrants and organising migration,” he added.
“We are asking Brussels and NGOs linked to Soros not to encourage the migrants, not to abet them to commit crimes and to violate the sovereignty of countries, such as Serbia and Hungary,”
he said. The responsibility for violent crimes committed by migrants, including acts that caused the loss of lives, lies with those that encourage migrants to come to Serbia and Hungary, he said.
Szijjártó said Hungary would not allow any illegal migrants to enter and advised them to not even try. “It is not worth coming to Serbia because they will not be able to move on to Hungary,” he added.
He said that while Hungary was fulfilling its duty to let in and help people fleeing from war in the east and stop the illegal migrants in the south, Brussels was holding back monies due to Hungary “in an effort of political blackmail”.
Szijjártó also said that cooperation between Serbia and Hungary was a success story, with a spectacular increase in trade between the two countries. During the first four months of this year, trade increased by 117 percent compared to the same period of last year and the increase was 42 percent in the whole of 2021 compared to the year before, he added.
He said the modernisation of the Belgrade – Budapest railway link, “the largest joint effort of all times”, had already entered a phase of implementation also in Hungary. As a result, under an agreement signed by the ministers on Monday, rail traffic on the line will be stopped from August 1, and cargo traffic will be moved to the Szeged-Subotica line which had been refurbished.
Commenting on energy issues, he said the two countries had recently made arrangements to ensure that “natural gas from Russia, which is critical for the security of energy supplies in Serbia, as well as in Hungary, and for the time being cannot be replaced, should securely arrive in Serbia and Hungary,” he said.
Fidesz MEP: LIBE and Delbos-Corfield prepares a “pre-written verdict”
After the clear and unequivocal decision made by Hungarians at the parliamentary elections on April 3, it is high time that respect should be shown and accusations stopped against the country, ruling Fidesz MEP Balázs Hidvéghi said on Wednesday in reaction to a recent report on Hungary.
Hidvéghi said on Facebook that the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) was scheduled to meet this week and “a report condemning Hungary is again on the agenda”. Following the critical reports of rapporteurs Rui Tavares and Judith Sargentini in the past, the new report has been drafted by Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield who visited Hungary a few months ago heading a LIBE committee, he added.
Hidvéghi, who is a substitute in LIBE, said that
Delbos-Corfield had prepared a “pre-written verdict” and consulted organisations linked to US financier George Soros.
At the April election, however, Hungarians “unequivocally rejected these lies, they rejected Brussels’ arrogance and constant lecturing,” Hidvéghi said.
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