‘Stop Soros’ bill tabled in Parliament
February 16th, 2018Opinions sharply diverge on the government bill which would force NGOs which ‘actively promote mass immigration’ to seek authorisation from the Minister of the Interior. A liberal reporter believes the bill may not pass, as the government does not command the two thirds majority needed for the part of the bill which refers to national security .
Quoting NGOs that might be targeted by the bill on hvg online, Dávid Dercsényi describes the government’s move as threatening the very existence of watchdog NGOs. If it passes, however, he writes, the NGOs believe that it will surely be scrapped by the Constitutional Court or the European Court of Human Rights. The bill includes an amendment to the law on National Security Services which would require a two thirds majority in parliament – and the government side is two votes short. The government knows this, and might therefore use the bill to point the finger at the opposition in the electoral campaign rather than actually pushing the bill through, Dercsényi writes.
In Figyelő, Gabriella Lengyel calls the document ‘a bill of its time’, intended to protect the majority of Hungarian society ‘against plans to settle masses of migrants in Hungary’. She dismisses the accusation that the government intends to crack down on ‘civil society’. There are 60 thousand NGOs in Hungary, she argues and only ‘a dozen vocal ones’ are at the service of goals that contrast with the freely expressed will of the population, she argues. She hopes further governments will follow the Hungarian example in order to save ‘the battered values of Judaeo-Christian Europe’.