As leaders across Europe fume over Viktor Orbán’s unsanctioned foreign policy adventures, the far-right Hungarian leader has intensified his campaign against independent voices at home, increasing pressure on media outlets and civil society groups that do not toe the government line.
The prime minister’s meetings in recent weeks with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, and the US presidential candidate Donald Trump have stoked controversy in diplomatic circles, further isolating Budapest at a time when Hungary is formally holding the Council of the European Union’s rotating presidency.
Getting far less attention abroad, however, has been a flurry of activity inside Hungary targeting independent journalism and watchdog groups. At the centre of the crackdown is the country’s controversial new sovereignty protection office.
Led by a figure with close links to the ruling Fidesz party and granted the power to draw upon the intelligence services without judicial oversight, the office was set up by Orbán’s government, formally to monitor foreign influence.
But in practice, critics say, it is serving not as an independent state body, but as a tool to apply pressure on government critics.
“The whole thing is so absurd that I would put it between Orwell and Kafka somewhere,” said József Péter Martin, the executive director of Transparency International Hungary, one of the organisations under investigation by the sovereignty protection office.
“In a European Union country, that absolutely should not happen,” Martin said in an interview in Budapest. The activities of the sovereignty protection office violated freedom of expression and were unconstitutional, he added.
While the motives of the office remain unclear, many say that there are signs that Hungary’s government, which has been centralising power since Orbán returned to office 14 years ago, is attempting to further limit the space for independent groups.
“The regime is hardening, so Orbán is not going in the direction of consolidation, but is visibly Putinising, and from year to year in a way that is more apparent,” said Ágnes Urbán, an academic and expert on the Hungarian media scene.
So far, the sovereignty protection office has said it is looking into two entities: Transparency International Hungary and Átlátszó, an investigative outlet known for its work unveiling alleged government corruption.
In public reports, the office has also taken aim at a host of high-profile media outlets, saying their journalism is harming Hungary’s national interest.
“It does not investigate the fact that the public media is full of Russian propaganda,” said Márton Kárpáti, the president of the board of Telex, one of Hungary’s leading independent news outlets, which was repeatedly mentioned in the sovereignty protection office’s July “disinformation” report on narratives surrounding the war in Ukraine.
“It does not investigate how much money social media influencers close to the government get, what war messages they convey, what kind of pro-Russian narrative they push,” he added.
In the report, news stories quoting figures such as the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, the Czech president, Petr Pavel, and the US ambassador in Hungary, David Pressman, were categorised as western disinformation narratives.
Among the report’s targets are some of Hungary’s best-respected foreign policy experts, who have spoken out about the government’s cosy relationship with the Kremlin.
Péter Buda, a former Hungarian intelligence official mentioned in the report, said: “In such a fragile and complex international situation, it risks a fatal escalation to give space to incompetent propagandists to suppress critical analysis, especially when they are acting in the interests of the party that is committing the aggression of war.”
The sovereignty protection office, led by Tamás Lánczi, did not respond to an interview request or to detailed questions about its activities.
Speaking on a panel alongside senior figures from the ruling party, Lánczi warned in July of a “sovereignty grey zone” in which organisations were “calling themselves different things – media, civil society groups – but in reality they are bodies exerting political pressure.”
In February, the European Commission announced it was taking the first step in legal action against Hungary over the law that created the sovereignty office. The US state department has also criticised the office.
But the Hungarian government maintains it is a necessity. In an emailed statement, Balázs Orbán, the prime minister’s political director, said that Hungary had faced “increased threats” in recent years and that the office was a key part in responding.
“The sovereignty protection office was established to look into foreign interference in Hungarian domestic affairs and protect Hungary’s sovereignty and Hungarian citizens’ interests. While not a national security service or investigative authority, the office enhances transparency by collecting and publishing detailed reports on its findings,” he said.
“Such offices are essential in every democracy, and some countries already have similar institutions,” he added.
The Hungarian government has promoted a narrative that media outlets and civil society groups are receiving significant funding from abroad in a way that lacks transparency – and that this money is distorting their work and negatively affecting Hungarian society.
Independent NGOs and media outlets have rejected these accusations as unfounded, saying their funding is fully transparent.
Many of the grants the government and its allies have pointed to are funded through open processes from the EU budget or the US state department, they say. “It’s not as if we got money from North Korea or Russia, but from the institutions of allied countries, or from the EU,” said Telex’s Kárpáti.
Some observers have cautioned that one of the sovereignty office’s main effects could be to spread confusion.
“One of the key elements here is to instil uncertainty and insecurity and as a consequence fear in civil society and media actors. This may lead to self-censorship,” said Zsuzsanna Végh, a programme officer at the German Marshall Fund.
Urbán said that the chilling effect was especially a risk outside the capital.
“I think it doesn’t necessarily impact the biggest organisations and outlets but, for example, for smaller, countryside organisations, there can be that kind of effect, where they don’t want to become a target of a national discreditation campaign,” she said.
Hungary’s minister for EU affairs, János Bóka, said the Hungarian sovereignty protection office “enjoys full independence and quite wide discretionary powers when it comes to exercising its activities within the legal framework”.
The “independent office” was not coordinated or connected to the Hungarian government in any way, he said.
Additional reporting by Jennifer Rankin in Brussels
