Tempus Public Foundation denied EU funding because of this. Autocracy Analyst wrote about our case.
Law No LXXVI of 2017 – dubbed the Hungarian foreign agent law – requires Hungarian NGOs receiving at least 22,000 Euros a year from outside of Hungary to declare themselves as foreign-funded organizations on a public website created by the Ministry of Human Resources. A group of NGOs, including the Power of Humanity Foundation, together with the Rights Reporter Foundation (the NGO operating the Autocracy Analyst blog) refused to comply with this law and filed a lawsuit at the European Court of Justice against the government. In it, they argued that he law was not intended to improve transparency, but to stigmatise NGOs receiving foreign funding, many of whom have previously been targeted by the hate-propaganda of the government.
In June of this year, the European Court of Justice found that the Hungarian law was indeed unlawful.
The ruling caused an uproar in government circles, and the Court was accused of being manipulated by George Soros, a philanthropist who has been frequently targeted by government propaganda in Hungary. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán accused NGOs funded by Open Society Foundations, Soros’s grantmaking organization of doing the bidding of foreign powers, and hinted at Soros’s influence over the European Court of Justice. Power for Humanity is one of the Hungarian OSF grantees and was previously harshly criticised by the pro-government media.