A story published on Thursday reveals in stark detail the effort of a Soros-funded NGO, headed by a Hungarian national, to lobby the German government to apply pressure on Hungary.
“Soros told me that, you know, we give you $3 million for the next three years,” boasts Balázs Dénes, the Berlin-based head of the Civil Liberties Union for Europe, as he explained the methods of pressuring the Hungarian government – including attempts to lobby the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany – according to a recording obtained by the Jerusalem Post.
There are colorful adjectives for people and work like that, but I’ll refrain. There’s no question, however, that these people are enjoying a good living serving what are clearly very political and ideologically driven interests of the Hungarian-American billionaire who built his fortune as the “Connoisseur of Chaos.”
“I’m having a meeting this week with a think tank,” says Dénes, “an organization which is influencing the German government and the Foreign Ministry of Germany.” He then goes on to describe the specific objective of the Soros-funded effort: to lobby the German government to lean on German corporations that have major investments in Hungary to apply pressure until certain laws are changed.
The law in question is Hungary’s legislation that would require greater transparency from NGOs – like the one headed by Dénes – compelling them to declare the sources of their funding. The law in question, much less strict than similar laws in effect in the United States or Israel, has been reviewed and given a pass by the Venice Commission. (For more details, see here and here).
The value of those German investments in Hungary and the jobs they bring to tens of thousands of Hungarians apparently matter little to Dénes compared to the sacrosanct agenda of his NGO.
The Jerusalem Post reached out to the source, who, in the obtained recording said that he was “recruited” by the so-called Open Society Foundation network with the aim to have a “human rights group” that is able to “control the European Union.” By control, Dénes means “to fight back on certain things... and to organize people and launch public campaigns and mobilization.” With ample Soros funding, of course. Dénes, according to the Post reporter, acknowledged that it was indeed his voice on the tape, and he stood by his statements.
When Hungary started to talk about a law for greater transparency on the funding of NGOs, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán argued that “Hungarian citizens must be given the right to know about all public actors, who they are and who pays them.” A clear distinction must be made between grassroots organizations made of “volunteers, trying to advance their neighborhood, the society” and “international networks, which call themselves civic,” the prime minister has said, those groups that “open up local offices in certain countries, hire activists, usually even pay them and…propagate international interests.”
That describes precisely what Mr. Dénes was hired to do, along with many others. That is, to lobby against the interest of his own country to advance the “open society” agenda of a man that has no democratic mandate and no accountability to any citizen.
This example revealed by the Jerusalem Post is merely the latest. A few weeks ago, I posted on a Hungarian media report about an astonishing revelation that George Soros spent more than 14 million USD in 2017 lobbying the US government against Hungary. We’ve also called attention repeatedly to his Open Society network’s lobbying efforts in Brussels (here and here) and others have noted the way George Soros himself, although only a private citizen, is received at the highest levels of the European Commission.
The Jerusalem Post article exposes once again the man behind the curtain. Though many in the mainstream media refer to him as a “philanthropist” and the work of the Open Society network as “charity”, there is nothing philanthropic or charitable about this. These Soros-funded efforts are blatant, ideologically-driven campaigns to influence political outcomes – in this case in Hungary – with zero democratic mandate.
We simply demand that that be transparent so that the voters can decide for themselves.