More than 300 national and international civil society organisations, comprising organisations represented on the Conference of INGOs (CINGO), have co-signed an open letter to Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, and Michael McGrath, EU-Commissioner for Democracy, Justice, the Rule of Law, and Consumer Protection.
The letter published on 22 may, which can be accessed here, expresses concerns about the submission, on 13 May 2025, of a new bill on “Transparency of Public Life”, by a member of Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party. According to the letter, it “would enable the government to target, defund and dissolve any organisation it designates as a threat to Hungarian sovereignty” and “[t]he bill, which was not open to public consultation, targets organisations along four main axes:
- Foreign funding targeted through extended powers of the Sovereignty Protection Office (...)
- Exclusion from domestic funding (…)
- Misuse of the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) provisions (…)
- Decisions without due process (…).”
For its part, CINGO’s Expert Council on NGO Law, which has been closely following legislative developments in Hungary, agreed last week to produce through an expedited process an opinion on the draft bill in question.
