NGO that revealed Samsung’s pollution targeted by Sovereignty Protection Office

Another NGO has been targeted by the Sovereignty Protection Office: the recently created office has sent a notice to the Göd-ÉRT Association, an enviromental group that protested the government’s push to fill Hungary with battery factories. Átlátszónet, the foundation of the investigative portal is also being targeted by the government office.

According to the notice sent to the Göd-ÉRT Association, based in the small town close to Budapest, Göd, the Office aims to identify and investigate organisations whose “activities using foreign funding may influence the outcome of elections”. They base their claim on the fact that the association won an EU tender in 2023 in partnership with the Átlátszónet Foundation and other NGOs. The association later participated in the 2024 election campaign, winning two seats in the Göd town council.

The Sovereignty Protection Office (SPO) was established in 2023 with the stated goal of „protecting the country’s economic, cultural, communication and political identity and independence.” The SPO’s jurisdiction has been dubious as it officially has no ability to impose sanctions on people or organizations, or make legally binding decisions.

It’s director, Tamás Lánczi, a long-time ally of PM Viktor Orbán described it as „having primarily analytic and fact-finding tasks”. Nevertheless, the SPO’s creation represent a new level in the Orbán government’s attacks on civil society. The act was denounced by, among other’s the U.S. Department of State as an action aiming to intimidate and punish independent organizations. Others made comparisons to Russia’s foreign agent law that requires anyone who receives support from outside Russia to declare themselves as foreign agents.

NGO under investigation for taking EU-funds

The SPO is demanding the Göd-ÉRT Association to provide information on its “professional” work, but also on what the SPO calls its “non-professional” activities, including networking and database building, press releases, actions and awareness-raising campaigns.

Bank account and general ledger extracts on the association’s financial activities are also requested, going back to 2020.

The SPO also requests detailed information on the use of the grant awarded by the European Commission’s “Our Common Values” competition and the activities carried out in relation to it, as well as on the association’s municipal election campaign. It wants to know, among other things, whether “a large number of e-mails, messenger, SMS, twitter or other messages with the same content were sent out to call for support at short intervals”, as well as precise data on the number of people reached in the election campaign, and the number of posters and leaflets used.

Samsung was fined 55 times due to the association’s work

The president of the Göd-ÉRT Association, Ákos Szegedi, says that they comply with all legal obligations for NGOs and operate transparently. The association submits annual financial and professional reports, the data and information of which are available to the public on the association’s website. In addition, detailed professional and financial reports on the grants awarded and the activities carried out in the course of the tenders are submitted to the tendering organisations. He said that requesting data beyond these is unconstitutional interference with the operation of a private association.

Most likely, the SPO’s ‘special attention’ and investigation has been triggered by the NGO’s activities regarding battery factories. The association has achieved considerable results in the investigation of the illegal and polluting operation of the Samsung factory in Göd, and one of its founding members, Zsuzsa Bodnár, regularly reports on this in her stories for the news portal Átlátszó.

The NGO’s investigations resulted to 55 cases where Samsung was forced to pay fines for breaking environmental and safety regulations.

Göd-ÉRT is not the only recent target of the Sovereignty Protection Office. They also informed the Átlátszónet Foundation that it is considered a foreign-backed organisation, and that it is now involved in the extended investigation of the investigative news portal Atlatszo.hu. The foundation works closely with the publisher of the website, atlatszo.hu Non-profit Ltd., and partly with the same staff. The site has been the subject of investigation since June 2024, along with the anti-corruption NGO, Transparency International.

Átlátszó’s foundation also under attack

The SPO’s most recent notice includes the demand that Átlátszónet sends them their articles of association, financial data of the years 2020-2023, and files about its bank accounts. Much of the three-page notice is devoted to two international grants that Átlátszónet wom: one from the Open Society Institute in 2021, and one from the Ökotárs Foundation in 2023. The latter was also a part of the EU’s “Our Common Values” program, where Átlátszónet Foundation applied in partnership with the Göd-ÉRT Association. Therefore, the SPO is also demanding to see everything from the grant contract to the cooperation agreement with Göd-ÉRT Association.

Balázs Tóth, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Átlátszónet Foundation has also stated that the foundation fulfils all the legal obligations of NGOs and operates in a fully transparent manner. The sources of income that have a significant impact on its budget are also published on the Foundation’s website each year in the supplementary annexes to the financial statements. In these, the Foundation lists in detail from whom, for what purpose and how much funding it has received and used during the financial year. For many years now, infographics have even been produced for easy reference, and the Foundation’s 2023 accounts are also audited.

By comparing the questionnaire received from the Göd-ÉRT Association and the Átlátszónet Foundation,

it seems that the Soverignity Protection Office is trying to implicate the NGOs in illegal campaign funding.

Göd-ÉRT participated as a nominating organisation in the June 2024 local elections, winning two seats in the Göd town council. The questions sent to the association implies that Göd-ÉRT and Átlátszónet could have spent the funds they received from the “Our Common Values” programme on this election campaigns.

In reality, this is not possible, since when Göd-ÉRT decided in March to run candidates in the local elections, it notified the Átlátszónet Foundation and the two organisations terminated their contract, ending their cooperation in the Common Values programme. Göd-ÉRT then closed the account on the grant and returned the unused funds to the Átlátszónet Foundation before the start of the election campaign. Átlátszónet naturally did not participate in the campaign, and Göd-ÉRT campaigned using different funds.

Written by Zsuzsa Bodnár and Tamás Bodoky, translated by Zalán Zubor. The original Hungarian version of this story is here. Cover photo: Göd-ÉRT Association