I would like to welcome the representatives of the media.
I now open the press conference.
Our intellectual patriots believe that when the Hungarian community is subjected to unjust attacks, they stand up for themselves backed by the strength of the truth.
Therefore, it is not surprising, for example, that the billions of forints worth of dollars arriving from abroad to support opposition forces, which influenced the parliamentary elections, can be considered a slap in the face of public morality and Hungary's sovereignty.
The old adage is true: he who pays the piper calls the tune. That is what we saw happen with the fall of the senior MEPs. The “lobbying” for the illicit receipt of money likely served the political and economic interests of foreign states and led to corruption in practice.
Senior MEPs arrested on suspicion of corruption using the power of their party group are about to be exposed.
Our active citizens have found it worthwhile to take a look at the civilian waters of our own nation. They found that some NGOs are unashamedly open about the fact that they rely on foreign money to sustain themselves. Unlike them, CÖF-CÖKA received the financial and economic reports of the
Átlátszónet Foundation and the Atlatszo.hu Public Nonprofit Ltd. from their voluntary intellectual workers without any remuneration. These data show substantial foreign ties.
However, as the data show, the Átlátszó foundations paid investigative journalists millions, which was financed by foreign partners. The 17 sponsoring partners they list are, without being exhaustive:
– Budapest Nyílt Társadalom Intézet Alapítvány (OSI)
– Transparency International Magyarország
– International Visegrád Fund
– Fritt Ord
– Budapest Nyílt Társadalom Intézet Alapítvány (OSIFE)
– Open Society Institute
– Open Society Initiative For Europe (OSIFE)
– Sigrid Rausing Trust
– GACC, České centrum pro investigativní žurnalistiku
– Benevity Platform
– OIP, Zinc Network
– Foundation Open Society Institute (FOSI)
– National Endowment for Democracy
– Global Anti-Corruption Consortium
– EAT Project
– Journalism Development Network
– Google Digital News Innovation Fund
The financial support provided to investigative journalists and the related costs have been taken into
consideration:
| Year | The financial support provided to investigative journalists and the related costs | Foreign and other aid for the year in question |
| 2016 | 33,244,294 | 36,296,560 |
| 2017 | 26,273,300 | 41,779,350 |
| 2018 | 14,672,149 | 25,895,630 |
| 2019 | 108,626,520 | 122,380,120 |
| 2020 | 140,971,134 | 150,486,163 |
| 2021 | 58,840,000 | 180,889,115 |
| Total | 382,627,397 | 557,726,938v |
The portals of the Átlátszó foundations give the false impression that, unlike the former, “they operate based on Community funding, which is also a guarantee of their independence”. This basis is crumbling because foreign support substantially exceeds domestic support.
The appearance of independence is contradicted by the fact that the Átlátszó foundations receive significant funding, close to HUF 90 million, through the Benevity Platform’s system. However, this system ensures anonymity, allowing any money from illegal activities to change hands, raising the
risk of tax evasion and tax fraud.
Benevity is one of the largest donations management companies in the world. Its network connects more than 2 million organisations. It also provides payment via PayPal. The company did not respond to our official request for information.
The Átlátszónet Foundation presents its public benefit activities as a form of cooperation with Hungarian, international and OTHER organisations engaged in anti-corruption activities, and by providing them with the data it has obtained and in its possession. The Foundation does not disclose
the details of these “other” organisations. It is not possible to track which foreign interests use these data. Foreigners can only access this data via the Átlátszó foundations.
Shockingly, in 2021, 2,727 public interest data requests were made in one year, with 5,372 data subjects available. 885 investigative journal articles were published on atlatszo.hu.
Many unanswered questions remain in addition to the collected data. Our intellectual patriots believe they are not investigative journalists. From a national security point of view, there are obviously official bodies that need to investigate the open questions and reassure the public with the
results of an investigation.
The chart below shows the support received by Átlátszó.hu Közhasznú Nonprofit Kft between 2016 and 2021. The chart does not show the USD 240,000 support provided by the Open Society Institute to the Átlátszónet Foundation in 2021.
In 2019, the year of municipal elections, and in the years leading up to the 2022 Hungarian parliamentary elections, there was a significant increase in foreign funding for the Átlátszó foundations, which cannot be a coincidence.
