Funding from the EEA and Norway Grants has once again become available to Hungary. Three organizations—all of which have documented ties to the Open Society network associated with U.S. oligarch George Soros—have been assigned key roles in the Hungarian administration of the civil society grant program linked to this system.
The grant system provides funding to Hungary through several programs, such as those in the areas of local development, healthcare, the green transition, institutional cooperation, and Roma integration. However, the funds are not always disbursed through the same channel. While Hungarian government agencies participate in the implementation of programs announced in the Hungarian Official Gazette, the civil society grant fund within the system operates under its own, separate framework.
The EEA and Norway Grants are financed by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, three countries that are members of the European Economic Area (EEA) but not the European Union. The funding is linked to the EEA Agreement, which gives these countries access to the EU single market. The grants are intended to reduce social and economic disparities across Europe and strengthen bilateral relations between the donor and recipient countries. Norway provides approximately 97% of the total funding.
The money comes from public resources in the three donor countries. Their contributions are financed through national budgets, which draw on tax revenues and other sources of state income. In Norway, oil and gas revenues have also played a major role in building the country’s public wealth, much of which is managed through its sovereign wealth fund.
The scheme is not politically neutral in its stated objectives: the Norwegian government openly presents the grants as a means of promoting democracy, the rule of law and LGBTQ+ rights, while also supporting Norway’s broader engagement in Europe.
This raises a question about how donor countries use publicly funded assistance to promote their policy priorities abroad.
The Hungarian allocation of the Norwegian Civil Fund is 22.9 million euros, Magyar Nemzet reports. A significant portion of this is available as grants that civil society organizations can apply for directly. No single government agency has been given an exclusive role in the distribution of these funds in Hungary.
A consortium consisting of the Ökotárs Foundation, the Autonómia Foundation, and the Carpathian Foundation–Hungary was selected to administer the Civil Fund.
The three organizations’ responsibilities extend beyond the technical administration of grant applications: they also participate in selecting projects for funding, concluding grant agreements, and monitoring the implementation of programs.
All three of the organizations have documented financial or support ties to the Open Society system linked to George Soros. In the case of the Autonómia Foundation, this is not merely a matter of past collaboration with Open Society. According to the organization’s own reports, Open Society has funded several of its programs. For example, in a 2012 public benefit report, the Open Society Foundations is listed as a funder of a Roma integration program with a total budget of more than $373,000. The connection is even clearer in a later report, which states that the Autonómia Foundation received 21 million forints in funding from OSIFE—that is, the Open Society Foundation Europe—between 2019 and 2021.
In the case of the Ökotárs Foundation, a relationship dating back several decades can also be documented. According to one of the foundation’s own reports from 2003, the organization participated jointly with the Hungarian Soros Foundation and other civil society organizations in efforts aimed at developing the civil society sector. The Carpathian Foundation–Hungary, meanwhile, lists the Open Society Institute–Budapest and the Soros Foundations Network by name on its website, on the page listing its main supporters.
In the context of the current agreements, therefore, it is not only the amount that matters, but also who controls the funds and under what conditions they can be accessed.
In the case of major government programs, Hungarian institutions also participate in their implementation, while donor countries continue to play a role in the design and oversight of individual programs. The situation is different, however, with the civil society support fund: there, a three-member consortium has been given a decisive role in the administration and selection of projects, and all three members have documented prior ties to the Open Society network associated with George Soros.
The EAA funding arrangement has been the subject of a long-running dispute between Hungary’s previous government and the donor countries. In 2014, the Orbán government challenged the independence of the organizations administering the civil society fund, and launched investigations into their activities. Norway and the other donor countries insisted that the fund be managed independently of the Hungarian authorities, as required under the grant agreements, and suspended payments amid the dispute.
In 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled against Hungary over legislation imposing registration, declaration and publication requirements on civil society organizations receiving significant foreign funding.