In the European Commission’s latest infringement procedure against Hungary, Brussels argues that our tightened Sovereignty Protection Act is meant to “silence government opposition.” In reality, its goal is to defend our domestic political system and elections from foreign political meddling.
Just yesterday, the European Commission announced that it’s launching an infringement procedure against Hungary because they see our Sovereignty Protection Act as a tool to “silence government opposition,” which violates “several fundamental rights.”
They couldn’t be further from reality.
Approved by 98 percent of respondents in the government’s latest national consultation campaign, the tightened Sovereignty Protection Act seeks to make accepting campaign funds from abroad a criminal offense.
But why is this necessary?
Because Hungarian left-wing parties committed the country’s biggest election financing fraud to date in the 2022 parliamentary elections by accepting around HUF 3 billion in illicit foreign funding for their failed campaign. The biggest chunk of the money came from a U.S.-based NGO called “Action for Democracy” (AD), in other words, George Soros.
This is the same “NGO” whose Executive Director Dávid Korányi, a known affiliate of Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony and former prime minister Gordon Bajnai, admitted in a leaked video that they are “actually not shy in criticizing authoritarian leaders and tendencies, like Bolsonaro, like Orbán in Hungary, like Kaczynski in Poland.” According to Korányi, his “NGO” is “supporting organizations on the ground, civil society organizations that are quite critical of these government actors very, very often.”
But, he added, they “will never say” or “advertise” that they’re supporting these organizations with the aim of funding the opposition through them.
Busted.
Action for Democracy’s activities, it seems, are not limited to Hungary. Even though they failed their mission miserably in Hungary and Slovakia (where AD reportedly funded organizations close to the liberals), there are signs that point to their successes in Poland and Brazil.
If one can call foreign meddling in a sovereign country’s domestic politics a “success.”
However, forces like Korányi’s AD, and the backers like Soros behind them, must be reckoned with, and this is exactly what our Sovereignty Protection Act is meant to achieve. The Hungarian Government will continue to defend Hungarian elections, and ultimately, Hungary’s sovereignty against foreign interference.