NGOs

Soros at talks in Brussels to get Hungary punished, says Hungarian FM in Luxembourg

REYNDERS, Didier; SZIJJÁRTÓ Péter Hungarian Foreign Minister

US billionaire George Soros is at talks in Brussels in order to get Hungary and the Hungarian people punished because they voted for ruling Fidesz, which rejects immigration, instead of his candidates at the recent general election, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Monday.

Although Soros’s candidates suffered a defeat in the April 8 election, he ignores the outcome of the vote, Szijjártó told a press conference during an intermission of a European Union ministerial meeting in Luxembourg.

Hungarians voted in support of a government that gives priority to their interests and refuses to yield to international pressure to focus on migrants’ rights and encourage migration, the minister said.

On the topic of a draft report on Hungary presented last week by the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee, Szijjártó said:

“The Hungarian people don’t need to be protected from the decisions of the Hungarian people.”

Hungarians have made a clear decision, declaring that Hungary needed to be protected from migration and as well as “the international policy which, instead of aiming to stop it, continuously encourages migration”, he said.

Only the Hungarian government is authorised to represent the Hungarian people, Szijjártó said. This means that neither the EP’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), Soros, Frans Timmermans, first vice-president of the European Commission, whom Soros is meeting on Monday, nor NGOs are authorised to represent them, he added.

As regards the regular meetings between Soros and Timmermans, the minister noted that

“they are both extremely pro-migration” and “committed enemies of the Hungarian government and Hungary’s migration policy”.

Szijjártó also noted that according to the EC, among the aims of the talks between Soros and Timmermans is finding a way to keep the EU together.

“It’s interesting how the first vice-president of the European Commission needs advice from an international speculator concerning the unity of Europe,” he added.

Photo: MTI/Európai Tanács/Mario Salerno

Election 2018 – Fidesz spokesman: Government plans to pass ‘Stop Soros’ bill in May

soros campaign hungary

After a resounding victory in which the Fidesz-led alliance chalked up a 49 percent win on its national list in Sunday’s election, the party vowed to press ahead swiftly to crack down on civil organisations that help migrants and refugees.

The Fidesz parliamentary group’s spokesman said in an interview on Monday that the governing alliance, with a two-thirds majority, would be able to freely pass the “Stop Soros” bill, which seeks to curb the activities of pro-migration NGOs. Parliament, said János Halász, is expected to meet later in the month so the legislation can be wrapped up in May.

“No one is in any doubt: this is a question of sovereignty and the security of the country,” he said.

Commenting on Fidesz’s projected 133 seats which equate to a supermajority, Halász also said Fidesz had not counted on such a big win. “We are delighted with the result,” he told public broadcaster M1. “People realised that it was a fateful election…” Halász added.

“We must carry on working to fight against migration … but also life goes on, and we will work to make sure taxes fall and wages grow, too,” he said.

Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó told M1 on Monday that the Hungarian government would use its “unprecedented support” to guarantee the security of the Hungarian people.

The European Union can’t find a solution to the migration crisis and “Brussels [sees] the security of their own citizens as less than a top priority,” he said. The Visegrád countries, he added, have decided to continue discussing the United Nations’ migration pact and try to change it “from the insidme”, he said.

Meanwhile, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said Hungary’s electoral process and the ruling parties’ excessive resources undermined contestants’ ability to compete on an equal basis in Sunday’s general election. Voters had the option to choose from a number of candidates, but “intimidating and xenophobic rhetoric, media bias and opaque campaign financing” hindered real political debate, OSCE election monitor Douglas Wake told a press conference assessing the ballot.

Gergely Gulyás, group leader of ruling Fidesz, said in reaction that the OSCE had “overstepped its authority” with some of its findings.

“It’s not within the OSCE’s remit to express an opinion about the Hungarian election campaign, and wrangling with the ruling parties that oppose migration and voicing an opinion on the government’s campaign is especially uncalled for,” Gulyás told MTI. “Opposing immigration is not xenophobia but rather a life instinct,” he said.

Featured image: Daily News Hungary

Soros ‘stuffed Naftogaz with own people’, says pro-government media

Daily News Hungary

George Soros has stuffed the management of Naftogaz, one of Ukraine’s biggest companies, with his own people, daily Magyar Idők said on Saturday.

The paper cites a recording of a recent conversation revealing ways the US financier used his influence in Ukraine to promote his own business interests.

The paper said an undercover reporter talked to Yevhen Bistritsky, a former leader of Ukraine’s Open Society Foundation, who cited a specific case to illustrate the ways in which Soros had gained influence in Ukraine.

“Naftogaz: this is a large energy company … we helped them transform the company … and we changed it,” the former Open Society official is cited as saying to the undercover reporter.

Naftogaz, one of Ukraine’s largest state-owned companies, is soon to be privatised. Earlier Forbes magazine said all the company’s managers owed their positions to Soros’s lobbying, the paper added.

Official Naftogaz documents show that Andrej Kobolyev, the company’s CEO, met Soros in London between November 1 and 4 last year to discuss the company’s privatisation, the paper said.

In addition to enforcing his own interests in Naftogaz, Soros is also busy attacking the company’s rivals in Ukraine, the paper said, using Transparency International as well as the Anticorruption Action Centre, two organisations he financially supports.

To promote these ends, Soros NGOs have attacked Burisma, a privately owned company, alleging corruption through social media and propaganda channels “as they usually do whenever Soros wants to get something or wants to destroy someone or something,” Magyar Idők said.

Election 2018 – DK: Orbán politically blacklisting NGO employees

Daily News Hungary

The opposition Democratic Coalition has accused Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of politically blacklisting 2,000 employees of NGOs whom Orbán, in a radio interview on Friday, accused of working to overthrow the government.

In his interview to Kossuth Radio, Orbán said George Soros paid NGO activists to serve the goals of the US financier’s “empire” by organising migration and “eliminating the foundations on which Christian nations and a Christian Europe are based”. These NGOs, Orbán added, attacked anti-immigration governments under pressure from Brussels, and then they influence the election to ensure their pro-migration goals are represented in parliament with the ultimate goal of serving the business interests of Soros. He said this was the reason for the government’s “Stop Soros” bill.

DK spokesman Zsolt Gréczy told a press conference today that Orbán had spoken like “a dictator”.

The DK spokesman said Orbán had shown in his interview that he was either “a crooked villain or finally off his rocker”. The DK spokesman insisted: “There are no Soros agents.” Orbán political opponents do not number 2,000 but 6 million, he added.

If the prime minister makes good on his threat to crack down on the NGOs in question, then DK will give political and legal protection to the people and organisations involved, Gréczy said.

Meanwhile, asked about comments made in an interview by Gergely Karácsony, the prime ministerial candidate of the Socialist-Párbeszéd alliance, that ministers of the pre-2010 governments would not be asked into a cabinet which he led, Gréczy said the coalition talks would determine who would end up as ministers as well as who would be asked to head the government.

“There were several excellent ministers in Hungary before 2010, many of whom currently play an important role in the Socialist Party,” he said.

Balázs Hidvéghi, the ruling Fidesz party’s communications director, said the opposition had “jumped at the first chance” to defend “Soros’s people and his entire network”.

Hidveghi told public media: “It’s clear from the opposition’s fierce reaction that the shouting comes from those whose house is burning”.

“It is quite clear that more than 2,000 people in Hungary are working against Viktor Orbán and Hungary in order to weaken the anti-immigration national government,” he said, citing Tracie Ahern, the former chief executive of Soros Fund Management. Soros wants to replace Fidesz with a pliant government that would turn Hungary into an immigration country, he said.

Election 2018 – Orbán makes final appeal to voters

Viktor Orbán election2018

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, in an interview to public radio on Friday, appealed to voters to cast their vote to decide not only the next government but whether Hungary remained a sovereign power or operated under an “internationalist government established by George Soros”; in which case Hungary would become “a country of immigrants”.

The governing parties, he said, addressed the single issue that was central to the country’s fate, namely migration. “Progress is made in vain if migration saps the country of its benefits,” the prime minister said.

The opposition parties, however, fail to speak to this issue because “they are under international censorship,” he said.

Orbán referred to audio recordings which he said revealed the mechanisms by which Soros money was paid for the recruitment of NGO activists to serve the goals of the US financier’s “empire”; among them, organising migration and “eliminating the foundations on which Christian nations and a Christian Europe are based”.

These NGOs attack anti-immigration governments under pressure from Brussels, and then they influence the election to ensure their pro-migration goals are represented in parliament, he said. The country is then transformed with a view to feeding the business interests of Soros, he said, adding that this is the reason for the government’s “Stop Soros” bill.

Orbán said “Brussels bureaucrats” would decide on the new European migration relocation system in June, under the Bulgarian EU presidency, and voters must elect a government that is capable of defending Hungary’s interests and protecting the country from the EU plan.

If a future government accepted this proposal, Hungary would have to immediately accept more than 10,000 migrants and pay each of them “9 million forints for their upkeep”.

Summoning the occasion of his Good Friday interview, Orbán said that culturally, a Christian Europe was “like air which is all around us; our home in which we feel at home in Christian Europe and Christian Hungary”. The political issue now is “whether we can preserve our way of life or succumb to outside influences which foist change upon us”.

Young people in western Europe must prepare for a life in which they may lose Christian Europe and become a minority in their own lands, Orbán said, adding that the crux of the debate over the future of Europe was the answer different European nations gave: some say an open society is the answer and others, such those in central Europe, want to protect life as it is.

He said it was hard to convince western European leaders on this point because they lived different lives from average citizens: they did not have to travel on the underground and there were no no-go zones in their neighbourhoods, so their quality of life was not directly affected by migration.

Meanwhile, Orbán also promised extra savings on winter utility bills following a government decision to spread the benefits of the scheme.

Photo: MTI

Orbán cabinet: ‘Stop Soros’ would stop NGOs ‘using migration against state’

soros campaign hungary

The “Stop Soros” law package would ban organisations using migration against the state, a justice ministry official told public television on Saturday.

The law package, which is to be voted on in parliament after the April 8 election, would allow the review of the purpose and trail of foreign funding to NGOs operating in Hungary, state secretary Pál Völner said. The leaders of these NGOs could be investigated to see whether they have engaged in illegal data collection or otherwise broken the law. Their financial transactions could also be mapped, he said.

In operating NGOs, demand should also be considered, Völner said.

A large network is pointless “for causes like this one…. even if they are paid lavishly from the background”, he said.

The aim of the bill is to make sure that “efficient organisations of international renown” such as the Maltese Charity or the Red Cross can work in Hungary, and not to “make permits available to anyone”. There are, furthermore, organisations with the “side job” of lobbying against Hungary abroad, as it has recently been revealed, Völner added.

Was a secret migrant database compiled in the transit zone?

refugees migration EU

At his press conference on Tuesday, Government Spokesperson Zoltán Kovács called on Migration Aid to reply to allegations that it compiled a secret database of migrants in the transit zone.

“The Cabinet is awaiting an answer to the question of what the true goal of these databases is and whether they have been handed over to third parties such as other organisations of the Soros network, for instance”, he declared, noting that the Government would also like to know where this data is stored and what other organisations took part in the operation in addition to Migration Aid.

According to Mr. Kovács, concern with relation to organisations that are linked to George Soros has increased further after an investigative report was published in the Hungarian press according to which these organisations performed illegal activities such as the unlawful collection of data.

As an example of the operations of the Soros network, the Government Spokesperson mentioned the fact that an article citing Amnesty International published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Tuesday “falsely claims that people are being kept prisoner in transit zones on the Hungarian border”.

This is just one illustration of the lies that these organisations are claiming with relation to Hungary and Hungarian border protection”, he said, underlining the fact that in recent years the Hungarian Government has spent a lot of energy on explaining the great efforts it is making at the border.

He highlighted the fact that in contrast the Soros organisations are doing everything possible to undermine Hungary’s credibility and in the interests of other goals with relation to which Vice President of the Migration Aid Foundation András Siewert has also stated are in fact of a financial and political nature.

Mr. Kovács also spoke about the fact that the Government’s goal with relation to submitting the Stop Soros legislative package, and also with legislation aimed at tightening regulations on the transparency of foreign-funded organisations, was to defend the results already achieved in combatting illegal immigration. “

These news reports are uncovering the Soros organisations’ activities in opposition to this on a daily basis”, he added.

At the beginning of his press conference, the Government Spokesperson said that recent articles in the foreign press leave no doubt with regard to the concerns and issues of national security raised by the activities that George Soros’s organisations are performing against Hungary in Western Europe, and particularly in Germany.

Mr. Kovács also referred to the article published on Monday in Hungarian daily Magyar Idők, according to which the Vice President of the Migration Aid Foundation “spilled the beans” to an undercover investigative reporter that George Soros’s alleged acts of human kindness in fact serve the enforcement of his financial interests.

“At the end of the day, it’s all about money. Of that I am sure”, the paper wrote, quoting András Siewert.

In reply to a question, the Government Spokesperson said that as a result of the efforts of the Hungarian people, real earnings in Hungary have been increasing for 61 consecutive months. He stressed that the Government is still not satisfied with the current situation because there is still a lot to do, but we can definitely state that we have begun moving in the right direction, thanks to which everyone can take a step forward from year-to-year.

Foreign Minister: Hungary’s security is the government’s top priority

United Nations human rights

The Hungarian government’s top priority is to ensure people’s right to safety, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said before the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva on Monday.

Detailing a government report on migration, Szijjártó told the committee that because of a history filled with freedom fights, Hungarians value human rights. He said every government has a duty to protect its citizens’ right to safety, work and home creation.

“The Hungarian people have a right to live in security, so that they do not have to be afraid of terrorist attacks and so that they can protect themselves from the security risks of the emergence of parallel societies,” Szijjártó said.

He noted that in 2015, 400,000 illegal migrants had passed through Hungary “ignoring national and international regulations” and Hungarian behavioural and moral norms.

This is why Hungary’s government says no to any initiative that promotes or encourages illegal migration, the minister said.

Because of this position, Hungary has been the target of international criticism, he said, noting that Hungary had rejected the European Union’s migrant quota scheme and opposes the United Nations’ package on migration in its current form.

The Hungarian government guarantees the people their right to safety, Szijjártó said. It has not and will not take in illegal migrants, he said, noting the link between migration and the terrorist attacks carried out in western Europe over the last two years.

Szijjártó said the Hungarian government had also guaranteed the people the right to express their opinion through the “National Consultation” surveys and the referendum on migrant quotas. Through each of those means, the Hungarian people said no to illegal migration, Szijjártó added.

The government will continue to do everything in its power to ensure that only the Hungarian people can decide whom they want to live together with and who should or should not be admitted to Hungary, he said.

On the subject of the ongoing debate at UN forums on multicultural societies, Szijjártó said that a uniform, organised, homogeneous society was no less valuable than a multicultural one.

He said that while NGOs represented international interests, Hungary’s government represented those of the Hungarian people. The minister argued that NGOs were never elected by anyone and that the will of the people could only be represented by national parliaments and governments.

Szijjártó said that taxpayer donations to NGOs in Hungary showed that support for NGOs among Hungarians was low. Citing data from last year, Szijjártó said that of Hungary’s 4.5 million taxpayers, only 193 had donated 1 percent of their income to Amnesty International.

A total of 516 taxpayers supported the Hungarian Helsinki Committee “which regularly attacks the government and acts as a representative of society”, he added. Szijjártó said NGOs were “attacking” the Hungarian government because of its opposition to migration.

As regards the right to work, he said that the Hungarian government gives every Hungarian citizen a chance to exercise this right. In 2010, Hungary’s unemployment rate was over 12 percent, but today it is at 3.8 percent, he said, adding that this was “very close” to full employment as defined by economics. Over the past eight years, real wages grew by 36 percent and the minimum wage by 88 percent, he added.

Szijjártó said Hungary sees family policies, rather than immigration, as the answer to its demographic challenges.

Featured image: MTI

Orbán cabinet to officially ask Jerusalem Post for recordings on ‘Soros NGO lobbying German government’

germany hungary flag

The Hungarian government will on Monday officially ask The Jerusalem Post for a copy of audio recordings “justifying efforts by a Soros NGO lobbying the German government to put pressure on Hungary”, the foreign minister said on Sunday, making reference to the newspaper’s recent article.

Péter Szijjártó responded to the Israeli paper saying on Friday that a Berlin-based NGO funded by US billionaire George Soros had tried to lobby the German government to intervene against Hungary’s law on the transparency of foreign-funded NGOs. The article made reference to audio recordings of a January meeting between Balázs Dénes, the Hungarian head of the Civil Liberties Union for Europe, and “someone he thought was a supporter”, in which Dénes can be heard talking about his organisation’s work to get Germany to pressure Hungary into overturning the law.

Szijjártó said the recordings indicated how the German government could put pressure through German businesses on the Hungarian government.

He in this context noted the presence of some 6,000 German companies employing currently about 300,000 people in Hungary.

German investments to Hungary account for 28-29 percent of all direct foreign investment to the country, Szijjártó said.

Any attempt aimed at leveraging German influence against Hungary will put at risk the jobs of hundreds of thousands of Hungarians, the foreign minister said.

Companies cited in the article include Mercedes, Audi and Bosch that employ some 35,000 Hungarians and talks are under way on prospective German investments that would create some 10,000 additional jobs, Szijjártó said, adding that “the Soros network’s activities jeopardise these”.

Read the original article on Jerusalem Post: http://www.jpost.com/International/Exclusive-How-a-Soros-funded-NGO-lobbied-one-EU-country-against-another-545200

Civil Union Forum: Commitment to national independence is the main message of next week’s Peace March

Daily News Hungary

The main message of the Peace March to be organised by the pro-government Civil Union Forum (COF) on the March 15 national holiday will be the marchers’ support for and commitment to national independence, COF founder László Csizmadia said on Friday.

The march will set off from Bem József square and proceed along Nyugati square and Alkotmány street before joining the state celebration at Kossuth square, Csizmadia told a press conference.

“The warm-hearted Hungarian and Polish marchers” will be marching behind a banner quoting the line “Homeland before all else” from poet Ferenc Kölcsey, he said.

Csizmadia said COF had long been preparing to organise a Peace March. Now the NGO “feels it is time” to demonstrate how big a majority “Hungarian national forces” hold, he added.

COF last organised a Peace March in 2014.

Fidesz: ‘Stop Soros’ bill is already under attack

soros plan hungary

The group leader of ruling Fidesz said on Thursday that “a confidante” of US billionaire George Soros “has mounted an attack” against the Hungarian government’s new migration-related bill.

János Halász responded to Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner Nils Muiznieks stating concern about the just submitted “Stop Soros” bill that covers the conditions by which migration support organisations may operate and a tax on donations made to those NGOs among other measures.

In his statement Muiznieks said that, if passed by parliament, the regulations will introduce “further arbitrary restrictions to the indispensable work of human rights NGOs and defenders in Hungary”.

He stated concern that civil organisations failing to meet requirements set in the law could be subject to sanctions, including a fine and ultimately dissolution.

The commissioner raised further concern over the proposal posing a risk that “arbitrary restrictions may be applied on the freedom of movement of persons involved in refugee assistance at the border”.

“These proposed measures raise particular concerns because of the likelihood that they will be applied to organisations and individuals who carry out activities in the field of protecting the human rights of immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees that should be fully legitimate in a democratic society,” he said.

Muiznieks also expressed concern over the Hungarian government’s portrayal of migrants and migrant support NGOs as “a national security threat” calling on the government to refrain from penalising, stigmatising and restricting the work of these NGO-s and human rights defenders.

Halász said the commissioner has attacked the bill because it could effectively halt migration, which works against the so-called Soros Plan aimed at settling millions of migrants from Africa and the Middle East in Europe including Hungary.

The Hungarian government will not allow that, he said.

featured image: www.facebook.com/MagyarországKormánya

Government to submit stricter version of ‘Stop Soros’ bill

residency bond

The government submitted on Tuesday a “significantly stricter” version of the “Stop Soros” bill to parliament after having made several modifications to the original draft legislation, the state secretary for government communications has said.

The biggest change made to the original draft concerns the clause obliging organisations that promote migration to register their activities, Bence Tuzson told a news conference. Under the amended version, the organisations in question would be required to seek permission from the interior minister to organise, support or fund migration, Tuzson said. Their requests will be reviewed in terms of their national security implications, he added.

The bill also has stipulations requiring a two-thirds majority, meaning that these will have to be backed by the opposition if they are to pass, Tuzson said.

He said the cabinet had assessed more than 600 amendment proposals for the bill and “has drawn the right conclusions” from them.

Justice ministry state secretary Pál Völner said that the clause in the law tying support for migration to the obtainment of ministerial permission requires an amendment to Hungary’s national security law. He said organisations will have the option to appeal the minister’s decision on procedural grounds.

If an organisation supports, funds or organises migration without permission, it will be given a warning by the public prosecutor to cease its activities and its tax number will be suspended, Völner said. If the organisation in question still fails to heed the prosecutor’s warning, it will receive a fine of up to 1.8 million forints (EUR 5,770), he said. If it still refuses to comply, the organisation will face legal action which could end with its dissolution as an NGO in Hungary.

The clause in the bill requiring organisations that promote migration to pay a 25 percent tax on donations received from abroad has been left intact, Völner said. However, under the amended bill, it would not apply to organisations that “don’t use those donations for such purposes”.

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Problems of legitimacy raised by UN Secretary-General’s statement, says Hungarian FM

united nations logo

Hungary’s foreign minister in an interview on Sunday questioned both the content of a recent statement concerning migration by United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and whether the act of making it carried legitimacy. 

Speaking to public radio, Péter Szijjártó noted that Guterres had referred to migration as an opportunity for strengthening economies, reducing social disparities and linking various societies. The minister said the statement raised problems of legitimacy precisely because the global organisation was currently addressing directives that would be used to manage migration later on.

“We find it unconscionable that the Secretary-General has jumped the gun on such a debate, and essentially declared that the world can be certain of the fact that, on this issue, member states do not in any way enjoy equal standing,”

Szijjártó said, adding that the question must be raised as to whether there was any point in taking part in any future negotiations.

He said that, unlike the UN, the Hungarian government wants to prevent and halt migration rather than encourage and organise it.

Szijjártó said the situation was grave because the declaration would be political and adopted by the UN General Assembly. It would include, for example, that countries should not criminalise illegal border-crossing and they should loosen immigration rules, he added.

Further, the UN would, in the relevant document, declare that countries that are far away from migration routes should also accept asylum seekers. It would also emphasise the positive role of NGOs.

“Hungary continues to hold the view that migration is a bad thing and our primary job is to guarantee the security of Hungary and the Hungarian people,”  Szijjártó said.

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The ruling Fidesz party said on Sunday that it rejected the UN migration package. Imre Puskás, the party’s spokesman, told a news conference that if the UN adopted the package, migration would be given the green light around the world, and these migrant-friendly proposals would be forced on countries through international law.

“The proposals are very familiar, and similar ideas can be found in the Soros plan,” he said, referring to the government’s assertion that US billionaire investor George Soros had hatched a plan to “import one million migrants into Europe every year”. He said legalising economic migration throughout the world would set a dangerous precedent.

Puskás added, however, that anyone who needed protection would, as always, find safety in Hungary.

Fidesz group leader slams Soros’s Davos speech

Gergely Gulyás, parliamentary group leader of ruling Fidesz, has slammed US financier George Soros over a speech he gave at the World Economic Forum in Davos in which he called Hungary a “mafia state”.

Gulyás called Soros’s speech “yet another attack against Hungary’s sovereignty”. He said the billionaire had made it clear in his speech that his views on Hungary’s upcoming election are “based on his own interests” and that “he believes not in the power of the people but in the power of money”.

“We already knew that he [Soros] wants to influence Hungarian political life… that he wants to influence Hungarian politics by putting his faith in financial resources rather than democracy,” Gulyás said.

But in Hungary, regardless of whether or not one agrees with the cabinet’s decisions, it is up to the voters to decide who will represent them in parliament and who will get to form a government, he insisted.

Gulyás said that irrespective of political leanings, everyone in Hungary should be outraged when someone refers to their country as a “mafia state”.

The group leader said that the Hungarian government “indeed poses an obstacle to Brussels’s pro-migration policy” which he said saw Europe’s future in migration rather than effective family policies.

Asked about Soros’s claim that the opposition Socialist Party’s leaders had been ‘bought up’ by Fidesz, Gulyás called Soros’s remarks “untrue”. He said Soros was using “an old Bolshevik trick” to “accuse others of doing what he is doing”.

He said Hungary’s opposition parties had been on the same page with Soros in terms of their position on migration.

Gulyás speculated that the reason why Soros was so “hard” on the opposition was because he saw little chance for a change in government. He said comments by Soros suggesting that there were “spies” in the smaller opposition parties as well were “signs of paranoia”.

Asked about Soros’s remark that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán “started really going wrong when he made his father rich by giving him a quasi-monopoly on road-building materials”, Gulyás said “every word of it” was a lie. He said the company owned by the prime minister’s father barely employs more than thirty people and only wins 3 percent of the available development contracts, arguing that it could hardly be considered a monopoly.

Featured image: www.youtube.com

Parliament security committee head to contact George Soros on ‘Soros plan’

Zsolt Molnár, the head of parliament’s national security committee, said on Thursday that he would send a letter to US financier George Soros, asking him to provide information about the “Soros Plan”.

The opposition Socialist lawmaker told reporters that he would make Soros’s answer available to the public. As a consequence, the meeting lacked a quorum.

Earlier today lawmakers of allied ruling Fidesz and Christian Democrats walked out of a meeting of the committee in protest against the presence of Bernadett Szél, co-leader of green opposition LMP and a member of the committee.

They argued that Szél and her party served the interests of Soros.

As a consequence, the meeting lacked a quorum.

Szilárd Németh, the deputy head of the committee for Fidesz, said Molnár had not consulted with him about his plan to write a letter to Soros. With this move, he said, the head of the committee “would transgress his powers”.

Ádám Mirkoczki of radical nationalist Jobbik proposed to invite Interior Minister Sándor Pintér to the next meeting of the committee.

Moláar said he backed Mirkoczki’s initiative, and convened the meeting for February 8.

Featured image: www.youtube.com

Cabinet office chief: government has list of organisations that promote illegal migration

refugees migration EU

The Hungarian government and authorities have a list of the organisations that promote, favour and provide legal assistance for illegal migration, Antal Rogán, the cabinet office chief, told public radio on Sunday.

The new package of laws known as “Stop Soros” will apply to any organisation that engages in these activities, “whether they be the [Hungarian] Helsinki Committee or others”, Rogán told Kossuth Rádió.

The government’s job is to monitor organisations that can be considered national security risks. Rogán said one way this could be done is by the government calling on the prosecutor’s office to investigate organisations that refuse to register their activities.

The cabinet office chief said it would not be a surprise if US financier George Soros would be among the first to be served with a restraining order under the new law “if he does not cease the financing of migration”.

Rogán said the Hungarian people want the government to “prevent the enforcement of Brussels’s migration policy and the implementation of the Soros Plan at all cost”. This is what the “Stop Soros” bill will have to accomplish, he said, noting that the government is expected to submit the draft package to parliament in February.

He said the government was open to any proposals aimed at improving the bill, adding, at the same time, that the government was only open to adding stricter stipulations, but not to making the bill more lenient.

Rogán said regardless of what the organisations that would fall under the jurisdiction of the “Stop Soros” law are called, “their sole aim is to find a way to implement the Soros Plan and to get the Hungarian government out of the way of illegal migration.”

“Some of them are there to organise protests against the cabinet, others to spread fake news about Hungary,” Rogan said, adding that

the organisations in question had a “common goal” of tearing down the fence on Hungary’s border with Serbia and re-opening the western Balkans migration route.

The cabinet office chief said that the “Stop Soros” bill could “easily be cleared of the accusation of anti-Semitism”. Not only is the Hungarian government not anti-Semitic, but it helps the Hungarian Jewish community, Rogán said, pointing out that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Hungary last year was the first visit by an Israeli prime minister for 30 years.

He said he expected Brussels to be critical of the “Stop Soros” package because it goes against the European Union’s migration policy.

NGOs call ‘Stop Soros’ bill ‘deceptive and harmful’

Daily News Hungary

Two dozens of Hungarian NGOs have qualified the “Stop Soros” draft package published in full on Thursday as “deceptive, arbitrary and harmful”.

Veronika Móra, director of Ökotárs Foundation, told a press conference that the package, which she dubbed “Stop Civil”, should be withdrawn. It is particularly harmful, she said, because the law would severely restrict the possibility to obtain and keep the public benefit organisation status for all NGOs.

The initiative is part of a process, Móra insisted. The first stage was the attack against the Norway Grants in 2013-14, followed by the 2017 “anti-NGO law”, which requires the registration of NGOs above 7.2 million forints (EUR 23,000) foreign funding a year, she said.

The NGOs in question will fight with all means at their disposal to stop the bill from being signed into law, she said.

Márta Pardavi, co-leader of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (MHB), said

the package was aimed at discouraging people from active involvement in public affairs. No democratic leadership can accept such legislation, she said.

Spokesman Zsolt Zádori said MHB activists had never met any NGOs “organising illegal migration”. Although members of these organisations “know this to be untrue”, authorities will now have the means to brand them as such, he said.

Commenting on the presser, the Government Information Centre said in a statement that these organisations have attacked the government’s migration policy from the start. They “denounced Hungary in Brussels for the legal border seal, the transit zones, the fence, the quota referendum and the national consultation on the Soros plan”, it said.

Government office chief János Lázár said on Thursday that Parliament is expected to vote on the new package of law aimed at “fighting illegal migration and boosting Hungary’s security” in February.

The bills would oblige NGOs involved in “organising illegal migration” to register their activities and pay a 25 percent tax on donations received from abroad to be spent on border protection costs.

Additionally, organisations could be subject to a restraining order with possible identical consequences to a ban, he said.

National Cooperation Fund to disburse HUF 1.5 bn among civil organisations in 2018

Daily News Hungary

Civil organisations in Hungary and beyond the border will be able to bid for a total of some 1.5 billion forints in grants disbursed by the National Cooperation Fund (NEA) until the end of January, a government official said on Friday.

Government funding for civil groups has grown by 70 percent over the past seven years, Miklós Soltész, the state secretary in charge of church, minority and civil society relations, told a press conference.

Whereas in 2010, the government spent 144 billion forints (EUR 464m) on supporting civil groups, by 2016, they received total funding of 240 billion forints, Soltész said.

Civil groups can apply for grants between 100,000 and 4 million forints. Unlike last year, applicants from beyond the border will not need to apply jointly with an organisation based in Hungary this time, Soltész said.