Civil Rights, Home Affairs and Justice Committee

European Parliament
Allée du Printemps
BP 1024 F-67070 – Strasbourg
epdublin@europarl.europa.eu

 

Dear Committee, dear committee members!

As the leading non-governmental organization in Hungary, the Civil Söfzefogas Közhaznú Alapítvány (CÖF-CÖKA) is contacting you with the following inquiry.

According to press reports, the LIBE delegation will arrive in Budapest this week and, as in all similar cases, when it consults with "civil society" regarding domestic conditions, according to information, it intends to visit NGOs financed almost exclusively from abroad.

On the basis of past experiences, the NGOs that you probably want to visit, mostly connected to the Open Society Foundation - calling themselves defenders of rights, but actually engaging in political advocacy activities - will obviously welcome you with open arms.

Of course, the fact that LIBE, at its meeting on November 19, 2018, strongly advocated the support of NGOs by European taxpayers from the EU budget may also play a role in this. As is known, the budget of the "Rights, equality and citizenship" program in the period from 2014 to 2020 was more than 439 million euros, while that of the "Justification" program was 377.6 million euros. Both projects made it possible to support certain domestic NGOs.

In recent years, LIBE has been able to intervene in the constitutional honor and sovereignty issues of nation-states on numerous occasions without serious consequences, by voting on political and ideological decisions disguised as legal professions.

While the Commission may feel its own decisions are legitimized by the affirming majority of the left-liberal – and in many cases only nominally conservative – representatives of the Parliament, the nation-states cannot act effectively against such attacks.

Based on this, we consider it extremely important to invite the members of your delegation to a professional discussion, where they can learn about a system of criteria different from the one-sided approach of NGOs, but as a result, they can leave us with a chiseled set of information that more objectively reflects the conditions in Hungary.

It would therefore be our pleasure if your delegation would deviate from the previous wrong path this time, inform themselves in more detail about our domestic conditions in order to form their position, and accordingly show courage and accept our cordial invitation.

Budapest, September 28, 2021.
Sincerely,
the management of CÖF-CÖKA