Soros’s Foundation Quits Hungary Under Government Pressure
Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been pressuring NGOs in Hungary, whom he believes threaten Hungarian society
By Drew Hinshaw
May 15, 2018 5:03 a.m. ET

A network of aid groups founded by George Soros is set to close its offices in Budapest, citing an increasingly hostile political environment toward the Hungarian-born billionaire.

The Open Society Foundations will move local staff to Berlin and base its operations for Hungary out of the German capital, the group said in a statement Tuesday, in what represents a fresh escalation in the conflict between Prime Minister Viktor Orban and civil society groups.

“The government of Hungary has denigrated and misrepresented our work and repressed civil society for the sake of political gain, using tactics unprecedented in the history of the European Union,” said Patrick Gaspard, president of the Open Society Foundations.

For three years, Mr. Orban has been tightening screws on local nongovernmental organizations that he believes threaten the Hungarian social fabric by funding oppositional groups or advocating for refugees. A 2014 spat with the Norwegian government, which funded a string of aid groups critical of Mr. Orban, ended with Hungarian police raiding NGO offices.

That conflict has been ramped up in the past year, becoming a touchstone debate between new nationalists who wish to see Hungarian civil society insulated from foreign and often liberal donors, and pro-democracy groups that view Mr. Orban as an increasingly authoritarian figure.

A law under discussion in parliament would place groups like Amnesty International under investigation as national security threats and impose new taxes on their foreign donations. If it passes, Amnesty says it will likely follow Open Society’s lead and close down in Hungary.

Mr. Soros is the paramount legal and rhetorical target of that proposed law, which legislators have dubbed the “Stop Soros” package. Mr. Soros, who was born in Hungary and fled after Nazis came to power there, has been an enormous, if often quiet, patron sending hundreds of millions of dollars to aid groups, academic programs and pro-democracy groups in the country. Like many of the country’s elite, Mr. Orban himself once studied on a scholarship funded by Mr. Soros, in his case, at Oxford University.

Mr. Soros has given more than $32 billion to support the Open Society Foundations in more than 100 countries around the world. The foundations advocate for a number of causes, including support for migrants, transparency in rule of law and good governance.

The prime minister has come to see Mr. Soros as an unaccountable figure intruding into the country’s domestic politics, an argument amped up by the 2015 migrant crisis. Mr. Soros backs liberal refugee policies that would allow asylum seekers to settle in Hungary.

“We are going to reaffirm those elements of our sovereignty which are under attack,” said the prime minister’s spokesman, Zoltan Kovacs, who also went to college on Mr. Soros’s largess, studying at the Central European University, a school founded by the billionaire. “The will of the people is going to rule the political arena,” he said last week.

Mr. Orban’s government has also taken aim at the U.S.-registered university. A law passed last year would force it to cease awarding most of its diplomas as early as next year. The university is now considering moving most of its operations to Vienna.

Write to Drew Hinshaw at drew.hinshaw@wsj.com


https://www.wsj.com/articles/soross-foun...sure-1526375017


Good Work Prime Minister Orban