Prime Minister Peter Magyar on Tuesday accused the previous Orbán government of having built “a system to siphon off public funds”.
PM Magyar: pseudo-civil groups linked to the Orbán government
In a video posted on Facebook, Magyar said that under the previous government, while “genuine” civil society groups had often had to compete for grants worth “only a few hundred thousand or million forints”, a world of “pseudo-civil” groups had emerged alongside them.
To illustrate this, the government has created a searchable map and database at atlathato.kormany.hu, tracking where grants intended for civil groups were allocated between 2022 and 2026, Magyar said. “Now, the past five years of grants to both genuine and pseudo-civil groups are public, allowing the public to trace the flow of some 400 billion forints [EUR 1.1bn]“, he said.
Magyar said that data on some 20,000 organisations can be viewed “constituency by constituency, town by town, organisation by organisation”. He cited the Lajos Batthyány Foundation as an example, which received around 65 billion forints in public funding during the period under review. “They financed Megafon, amongst other things,” Magyar added.
Suspicious funds to the top politicians
The Mathias Corvinus Foundation received 52 billion forints in public funds, the Land of the Future Generation Foundation, linked to János Lázár, the former construction and transport minister, received around 27 billion forints, the Blue Planet Climate Protection Foundation, linked to former President János Áder, received around 24 billion forints, Magyar said. The Kommentár Foundation in Veszprém received approximately 22 billion forints, and the Népfőiskola Foundation, linked to Fidesz deputy leader Sándor Lezsák, got approximately 6 billion forints, he added.
In Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County, former local Fidesz figures received grants of 50, 100, 150, or even 250 million forints for their “notoriously” own organisations, Magyar said. Some “front organisations” siphoned off grants intended for local civil society work and organised political events for local Fidesz-KDNP candidates, while others used public funds to publish campaign materials, party newspapers and leaflets, he added.
In one case, he said, a “pseudo-civil organisation” even nominated a candidate in an election while receiving state funds meant for “genuine” civil groups.
A mafia-like system
“This is the story of a mafia-like system in which, with one hand, the state gave public funds to the civil society sector linked to those in power, while with the other hand it attacked, stigmatised and turned genuine, independent civil society into an enemy,” Magyar said.
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“Public funds do not belong to Fidesz, nor to any minister, nor to any lawmaker, but to the Hungarian people,” the prime minister said.
“Fidesz built this system over 16 years, and we are exposing it step by step and dismantling it brick by brick,” he said, adding that they were building “a country where civil society is truly civil society, and public funds are genuinely public funds.”
Magyar called on the “pseudo-civil” groups and those who “grew rich on billions from taxpayers” to “return the unjustly and undeservedly received funds immediately”. He warned that those who misused public funds would not escape the consequences.
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