Soros network donated highest sum to Budapest City Hall

US stock market speculator George Soros supported his Hungarian network with more than $28.5 million dollars between 2016 and 2021, according to a summary recently published by Atlatszo, which is also partly funded from the US. Most of the funding went to the capital, led by Mayor Gergely Karacsony, who is embroiled in a controversy over his spending during the primaries.

Budapest, 2023. január 25. Karácsony Gergely fõpolgármester, Kiss Ambrus (független) általános fõpolgármester-helyettes és Tüttõ Kata (MSZP) városüzemeltetésért felelõs fõpolgármester-helyettes (j-b) a Fõvárosi Közgyûlés ülésén a Városházán 2023. január 25-én. MTI/Kovács Attila Fotó: Kovács Attila

The Atlatszo portal, which has received 427 thousand dollars from George Soros's foundation in recent years and is therefore presumably up to date with the speculator's donation affairs, has published a large compilation of the billionaire's funds invested globally and in Hungary in recent years. The list shows that between 2016 and 2021, the Soros empire funded around 150 organizations in Hungary with a total of more than $28.5 million.

As regards the total number of donors, the Soros network funded the highest number of organizations, 82, in 2018, which was a key election year in terms of the migration crisis.

Thereafter, fewer and fewer players received funding. In 2021, only 31 organizations pocketed donations, although the average sum granted was higher than before.

Budapest City Hall received huge sums

Atlatszo itself notes that in the period under review, the Open Society Foundations (OSF) gave the highest sum to the Budapest City Hall, more than $3.3 million in 2020. 

According to the portal, "the capital received the money to support health care and the examination of people at increased risk during the coronavirus epidemic.”

It is noteworthy that news reports at the time mentioned only one million euros in aid. Mayor Gergely Karacsony described it a generous and noble gesture.

In November 2019, Karacsony handed over the keys to the city to 90 NGOs, including several from the Soros empire. And in 2021-2022, the mayor received more than $1.4 million from as yet unknown sources, mostly in euros and pounds, for his ultimately failed election campaign. 

It is also worth noting that Karacsony's former chief advisor, David Koranyi, who raised millions of dollars in the United States for the Hungarian left-liberal campaign, is involved in the European Council on Foreign Relations, a group also financed by Soros, together with the speculator and his heir Alexander Soros.

A telltale link

The second largest grant, almost $2.5 million, went to a little-known but all the more important organization in the Soros network. About ten years ago, the Civil College Foundation (Civil Kollegium Alapitvany) "coordinated" the student network that attacked the Fidesz headquarters. Later it launched the so-called Clean Voting Campaign "for the purity of the 2022 elections and voter education" together with the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (TASZ), Political Capital and aHang, which organized the left-liberal primaries, and also belongs to the Soros network. One of the founders of the latter is Mate Varga, president of the Civic College Foundation. So the second largest source of funding in recent years has been the organization whose president was also responsible for the left-liberal primaries.

Familiar faces

Third on the list is the main organizer of the Soros empire in the city of Pecs (The Power of Humanity Foundation), and in forth is the network’s regional organizer in the city of Debrecen (Alternative Communities Association). Fifth is the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, which recently distanced itself from the thoughts of founder Ferenc Koszeg relativizing pedophilia. Sixth on the list is TASZ and seventh is Summa Artium, which used to finance Hungarian political Youtuber Marton Gulyas.

It is interesting to note that Political Capital, which received a commission worth $541 thousand dollars from the scandal-ridden secret service of the Gyurcsany government, has also recently got more than $285 thousand from the Soros network.

In addition, the Soros network of foundations has given more than a quarter of a million dollars to the publisher of Nyugat.hu, founded by Csaba Czegledy, a confidant of Ferenc Gyurcsany.

Liberal portal 444.hu left out

The authors of Atlatszo note that "... the lowest amount, barely 500 thousand dollars, was given to journalistic organizations."

This may be true in itself, but it is worth adding that, in addition to Nyugat.hu and Atlatszo, a number of other media outlets, such as Direkt36 and K-Monitor, have also received substantial funding from the Soros’s foundations.

Last but not least, 444.hu, a major Soros-affiliated media outlet was left out of the compilation. Since 2014, the portal's publisher has been part-owned by Digital News Ventures, part of the MDIF Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF). Among MDIF's supporters and investors is George Soros’s OSF.

Cover image. Mayor Gergely Karacsony, Deputy Mayor Ambrus Kiss and Deputy Mayor Kata Tutto at the meeting of the Budapest General Assembly at the City Hall on 25 January 2023 (Photo: MTI/Attila Kovacs)