Hungary New NGO Bill Aims to ‘Stop Soros’
By F. William Engdahl
22 February 2018
The Hungarian government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban has presented a series of proposed laws that would address the operations of foreign-funded NGO’s which support immigration. The new legislative proposals have come under heavy attack from organizations such as the UN as well as from the George Soros-funded Human Rights Watch. It’s important to look more closely at what the proposed legislation would do in contrast to what many media are charging. The issue of human refugee flows and how EU nations are allowed to deal with this is the defining issue that will shape the very future notion of Europe. Some actors in this play including the billionaire hedge fund speculator Soros are apparently not being fully honest about their agenda .
On February 13 the Hungarian Parliament received drafts of three bills, popularly referred to in Hungarian media as the “Stop Soros” bills. They aim at groups working on asylum and migration issues in Hungary. The bills have drawn predictable howls of protest from not only a leading NGO financed by Soros, but also from the EU Commission in Brussels, and from the United Nations. First to the actual content of the proposed laws.
Actual Details
The bills target pro-immigration NGOs that:
- one concerns the licensing of the migration NGO organizations
- the second concerns a special tax on foreign income received by them
- the third concerns a possible restraining order banning access to areas near the border or in certain cases, the entire country
Under the new proposals the Hungarian government would require mandatory registration by the NGO to receive a special license from the Minister of the Interior as an organization dealing with migration issues. NGOs that refuse could be subject to a court determination that could formally dissolve organizations without this special license. To get a license the NGO must submit its books to a state tax audit to show funding sources.
The bills target pro-immigration NGOs that:
- attempt to influence the legal practices of authorities and courts
- organize the monitoring of Hungary’s borders
- organize the preparation of certain information materials
- build networks and/or organizing volunteers
It addresses any NGO or refugee organization that receives directly, or indirectly, funding or other material support from foreign sources, or extends financial or other material support. They will be taxed 25% of the foreign support value.
The bill also bans entry to Hungary for foreigners or Hungarian citizens suspected of supporting the entry of asylum seekers. That could effectively ban Soros, a dual Hungarian-American citizen and members of his international migration NGOs. And where warranted the interior minister will use the state security services to determine whether the organization poses a national security risk. Fines for not registering are a maximum of $7,200, hardly a burden for the Soros NGOs. Any Hungarian registered immigration-related NGO must also notify the state tax authority within 3 days of receipt of “financial or property benefits directly or indirectly from abroad.”
In short, the free flow of money from Soros and other foreign sources to break Hungary’s resistance to refugee inflows is being challenged by the Orban government. In drafting the new bills, the Orban government stated that they turned to the population and received comment from some 2.3 million citizens regarding their proposed “Soros Plan.” The results it says showed that Hungarians want strong border protection and decisive action against those who organize illegal immigration. “HungarianCitizens unanimously reject all plans facilitating and encouraging immigration. Hungarians do not wish Hungary to become an immigration country.”
Soros in Refugee Crisis
Orban’s focus on the role of Soros is not random. Soros foundations and money have played a decisive role in every facet of the developing EU migration crisis since well before 2015.
Behind all self-serving rhetoric by various Soros-supported NGOs such as Open Society Foundations International Migration Initiative or Human Rights Watch, there is a fundamentally opposed agenda not only to Hungary’s Orban government, but as well to many EU governments including that of the recently-elected Austrian government under Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who has expressed support for Orban’s migration policy.
In late 2015 as the inflow of refugees into the EU from Syria and North African war zones exceeded a million people, Soros sent a statement to Bloomberg where he made clear the two opposed views of the contentious issue that has since changed the political map of EU countries from Germany to Austria to Poland and other countries. Soros told Bloomberg, “Orban´s plan treats the protection of national borders as the objective and the refugees as an obstacle,” Soros added. “Our plan treats the protection of refugees as the objective and national borders as the obstacle.”
No better statement of the opposed views of the refugee or immigration issue can be found. Soros openly declares for open borders and unrestricted inflows of people from the same countries such as Syria or Libya where Soros NGOs are fueling the wars that create the flood of refugees in the first place, including Soros’ NGO roles in Arab Spring destabilizations and in adcvocatig the Libya “responsibility to protect” intervention against Qaddafi in Libya.
In 2016 the website DKLeaks released hacked internal emails from the Soros Open Society Foundations. Among them was an email from the OSF International Migration Initiative titled, “Migration Governance and Enforcement.”There the Soros organization describes a strategy to use the immigration crisis to “strengthen norm-setting and prevent the violation of migrants’ rights by minimizing harsh border controls and decreasing the widespread use of detention and deportation.”
The report states, “As our aspirations have evolved, our targets have shifted from harm reduction to more proactive solutions-based policy influencing,” and mentions failures to capitalize on opportunities to spur “grassroots level” support for migration, but saying “The refugee crisis is opening new opportunities for this.” The 9 page Soros OSF memo declares “accepting the migration crisis as the new normal,” suggesting very much the kind of agenda Hungary’s outspoken Prime Minister accuses Soros and other NGOs of backing.
Notably, the OSF documents release by DCLeaks has since been scrubbed from the internet. Before that was done, I was able to access the OSF 9 page memo in full. Among other pointsthe hacked Soros Open Society Foundations (OSF) documents revealed that Soros’ money has also been key in coordinating worldwide what Soros’ people call three “refugee corridors” through Soros’ International Migration Initiative (IMI) NGO. Those include facilitating refugee flows in Asia-Middle East (Syria, Libya, Tunisia etc) and Central America-Mexico. Then in 2013, Soros added as their third “corridor” the significant immigration problems in Russia and the Central Asia republics as target for their meddling.
The hacked Soros IMI document further speaks of, “Influencing migration policy through think tanks and policy centers.” The report then stresses that, “OSF and the MacArthur Foundation have been the only private foundations willing to invest in shaping migration discussions at the global level…” As well, the George Soros’ Central European University, in Budapest, has created a special course in their School of Public Policy titled, Migration Policy in a European Context.
The entire issue of EU migration or refugee flows is being used by influential NGOs such as those tied to Soros to weaken the idea of national sovereignty. This is the real issue that few political figures aside from Orban dare to address. Borders are being eroded not only through war as previously, but through facilitation of refugee movements in the EU. This is the clear issue Orban and others in Hungary demand be addressed openly and honestly.
F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”