Soros foundation closing its office in ‘repressive’ Hungary

GEORGE SOROS’S foundation has said it will close its office in Budapest and move to Berlin, leaving what it called “an increasingly repressive political and legal environment” in Hungary.

The pro-democracy group yesterday said it was pulling out, a day after the Right-wing government of Viktor Orban, the prime minister, announced it would tighten restrictions on non-governmental organisations, under a law dubbed the “Stop Soros” bill.

Mr Orban, who won a landslide election victory last month, has repeatedly accused Mr Soros and his organisation of encouraging migrants and undermining the national culture.

Mr Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF) said it would continue to support human rights work in Hungary, as well as projects linked to arts, media freedom, transparency, education and health care, but it would move its Budapest-based international operations and staff to Germany.

“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,” Patrick Gaspard, the OSF president, said in a statement.

Opposition and rights groups have long said that the departure of the OSF would be a milestone in a slide towards authoritarian rule in Hungary and go against the principles of the EU – a charge dismissed by the government. Zoltan Kovacs a government spokesman, declined to comment.

Mr Orban has increased his control over the media and put allies in control of formerly independent institutions, while his stand on refusing to accept large numbers of migrants in Hungary has also put him in conflict with the EU.

Mr Orban and Mr Soros have clashed over the 2015 European migration crisis. Mr Orban says Mr Soros is out to undermine Europe’s cultural identity, while the billionaire has accused him of running a mafia state.

The NGO legislation is expected to be one of the first laws passed by the new parliament. It would allow the interior minister to ban NGOS active in the immigration field deemed to pose a “national security risk”. It would also impose a 25 per cent tax on foreign donations to NGOS that back migration.