The ultra-conservative government of Viktor Orbán has embarked on a crusade against foreign powers that supposedly threaten Hungarian sovereignty. His party, Fidesz, presented a legislative package to Parliament last week for the “defense of sovereignty.” The Executive proposes reforming the penal code to punish foreign financing of political activities with up to three years in prison and creating an Office for the Defense of Sovereignty, with broad investigative powers. More than a hundred civil society organizations have denounced this Friday what they see as Orbán’s latest attempt to “intimidate, dissuade and silence” critical voices.
“A country where people are intimidated from representing their own interests is not a democracy,” the NGOs say in a joint statement. “By implying that behind every critical position there are foreign interests, the authorities despise their own citizens when they seek to intimidate, dissuade and silence those who actively participate in public life,” they insist.
The alleged attacks on national sovereignty have become a priority for the ultranationalist Orbán, who has begun to heat up the electoral campaign for the European and municipal elections of 2024. The legislative proposal goes beyond the prohibition of foreign financing of parties policies already in force by introducing prison sentences and extending the veto to citizen organizations, very active in local elections in Hungary. He also envisions the 12th reform of the Constitution since Orbán returned to power in 2010 to include, among other provisions, that “the defense of the homeland is a national matter.” This fall the Government has wallpapered Hungary with posters against the alleged attempt at interference by the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and Alexander Soros, son of its archenemy, the tycoon George Soros, to promote one of its classic national consultations .
The Government wants the new Office for the Defense of Sovereignty to operate from February 2024. It will not have disciplinary powers, but it will have broad powers to initiate investigations and access all types of information on political parties, civil society associations, journalists or citizens, according to NGOs. In addition, you may make recommendations to other bodies.
Márta Pardavi, co-chair of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, one of the country’s main organizations defending democracy and human rights, explains by phone that the new authority can initiate investigations when it considers that certain activities pose a risk to national sovereignty because respond to foreign interests. Also when she sees financing from abroad that she believes can interfere in the elections or influence the will of the voters. This legal expert compares “the uncontrolled arbitrariness of this office” with “the internal secret services that were intended to intimidate, harass and defame Hungarian citizens” in the communist era.
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The deliberately ambiguous text of the norm allows all types of activities to be put under the magnifying glass of that agency, according to the NGOs. Organize a conference on the rule of law or the war in Ukraine – both issues that pit Budapest against Brussels; ask for one of the grants from the European Parliament to encourage participation in the elections; organize debates on the European Green Deal or bring together MEPs to talk about any issue. The list of suspicious activities can be endless.
The Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, Dunja Mijatović, warned this Monday in a statement that the office “will provide the Executive with even more opportunities to silence and stigmatize independent voices and opponents.” Zoltan Kovacs, Secretary of State for International Communication of the Hungarian Government, dedicated a personal attack to the commissioner for the political past of her mother and her grandfather and later responded to her on the social network before Twitter: “The law is far from being an authoritarian tool; rather, it serves to reinforce our key strongholds, ensuring the integrity of Hungarian political processes and protecting them from foreign meddling.” In another message he defended the norm, recalling that Péter Márki-Zay, leader of the failed joint opposition bid for the 2022 elections, who was not part of any party, received US funding.
Precedent in 2017
The Hungarian Government already approved a law in 2017 aimed at controlling foreign financing of NGOs, but the rule was repealed after an infringement procedure initiated by Brussels. Stefánia Kapronczay, executive director of TASZ, the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, explains that the current proposal goes further because it no longer only talks about foreign financing, but also about activities that serve foreign interests.
Kapronczay sees a double danger in the activity of the new office. “On the one hand, it is a propaganda tool in the sense that it does not have clear definitions, but it can be used to label organizations that they consider harm Hungary’s sovereignty,” he says. “It is also very problematic because the reports it produces can be used by other authorities to cause even more harm to organizations and citizens.”
The essence of the law is reminiscent of Russian regulations on foreign agents. Kapronczay would not be surprised if the Government has been “inspired” by it, because “Russian examples are always used as a textbook” in Hungary. He further notes that “President Vladimir Putin very recently made a speech about Russia’s sovereignty, and it had striking similarities to what Prime Minister Orbán is saying about Hungary’s sovereignty and how the West is threatening our sovereignty.”
“The law violates the Constitution of Hungary and also fails to comply with EU legislation,” say the organizations that signed the statement, recalling the 2017 law and another from 2018. “Those have already failed and this one will not be different,” they trust. The norm still has to go through the parliamentary process.
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