A Hungarian think tank closely linked to autocratic leader Viktor Orbán has been accused of breaking EU lobbying guidelines by failing to declare its funding, DeSmog can report. 

MCC Brussels has failed to disclose financial figures and funding sources despite lobbying within the EU since 2022, the advocacy organisation Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) states in its complaint. 

The think tank is an arm of Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) – an institution that has received more than $1.3 billion in Hungarian state funding, largely via a 10 percent stake in the country’s national oil company. 

MCC is chaired by Viktor Orbán’s political director, Balázs Orbán, who has said: “It is our goal for Hungary to become an intellectual powerhouse, in which MCC plays a key role.”

Viktor Orbán has declared plans to “occupy” Brussels and put a far-right stamp on EU policies around migration, climate, and gender.

MCC Brussels has called on the EU to “ditch the net zero madness” and has helped to convene anti-green groups from across Europe over the past year. It recently stated that one of its key campaigning objectives this year was to help create “a Europe unshackled from environmentalism”.

“After decades of undermining democracy in Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has set up a very comprehensive propaganda machine for exporting his authoritarian politics,” CEO states in its complaint. 

“With democracy in Europe being under severe attack by authoritarian forces from inside and outside Europe, the financial disclosure obligations of the EU Transparency Register must be strongly enforced to avoid secretive financial flows boosting the activities of organisations like MCC Brussels.”

The EU’s Rules

Under EU guidelines, all organisations lobbying within the bloc must provide information on their activities via the EU Transparency Register. Non-commercial groups such as MCC Brussels are required to declare their lobbying budgets and any funding over €10,000 that make up more than 10 percent of their total spend. 

MCC Brussels has so far relied on an exemption that states it does not have to disclose financial figures for the first two years after joining the registry, which it did in January 2024.  

However, CEO claims that MCC Brussels should have registered sooner, given it has been lobbying on EU policy since it launched in late 2022. 

At the time of its launch, chair Balázs Orbán stated that MCC Brussels would “attempt to acquaint European policymakers with its distinct approach toward the political, socioeconomic, and cultural issues of our time”, and it published a briefing in January 2023 calling for “a total overhaul of EU policies” on innovation and regulation.

EU rules state that any group “organising or participating in meetings, conferences or events” or “preparing or commissioning policy and position papers” should join the transparency register.  

“The fact that they only joined the transparency register as late as in January 2024 does not justify bypassing basic transparency obligations,” the CEO complaint states. MCC Brussels told DeSmog that it was unable to join the register until its status as an independent legal entity was confirmed. 

The European Commission will now decide whether to launch an investigation following the complaint, although a final decision would not be expected for several months. 

A spokesperson for MCC Brussels said that the group “has been open about its intents and purposes since we set foot in the city” and that it has “complied with all the relevant requirements of the transparency register.”

When previously asked by DeSmog about the funding sources of MCC Brussels, its executive director Frank Furedi said that he maintained “complete independence” over its output and agenda.

He added that he would be “prepared to take money from the devil, because I think I’ve got enough integrity, that you know, I’m not going to play to their tune.”

NGOs Under the Spotlight

The complaint comes at a moment of growing tension over the funding of advocacy groups in the EU. Over recent months, right-wing parties in the European Parliament and countries including Hungary have escalated calls for the EU to remove funding for NGOs that lobby the bloc.

Several European Commission’s funds direct money to climate and civil rights charities and, in February, MCC Brussels published a report accusing the EU of funding a “shadowy network of NGOs and think tanks” through its Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) programme. This scheme aims to support work protecting fundamental rights such as democracy and equality, according to the Commission. 

MCC Brussels called for the introduction of an EU DOGE – a reference to Elon Musk’s controversial Department of Government Efficiency, which has slashed funding for the country’s foreign aid programme and has been widely criticised for gaining unauthorised access to sensitive government files.

Orbán – who has severely restricted political, media, and judicial freedoms in Hungary over recent years – is an ally of the new U.S. President Donald Trump. Speaking in March 2024, while hosting the Hungarian leader at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, Trump said: “There’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orbán. He’s fantastic.”

The NGO funding controversy has already impacted green groups. They were told by the European Commission last year that funds allocated through its LIFE programme – described as “the EU’s funding instrument for the environment and climate action” – could no longer be spent on lobbying work. 

The LIFE fund was set up “to counter-balance the interests of other [corporate] actors in the EU arena”, and campaigners have pointed out that LIFE operating grants available for NGOs account for just €15.6 million annually, or 0.006 percent of the EU’s annual budget. 

“NGOs foster and protect our democracies and our freedom of speech. Civil society needs those funds to fight for the rule of law, the rights of young people, marginalised communities, workers, and the planet,” said Anja Presnukhina and Luca Guidi, co-spokespeople of the Young European Greens, told DeSmog. 

“When NGO funds are being targeted, corporations and politicians alike are simply putting up a smoke screen and trying to conceal their own interests.” 

While MCC Brussels campaigns for civil society groups to be stripped of state backing, its parent organisation has been directly funded by the Hungarian government. 

In 2020, Orbán’s administration gave MCC a 10 percent stake in Hungarian oil company MOL, a 10 percent stake in the pharmaceutical firm Gedeon Richter, plus $462 million in cash, and $9 million in property. 

Through Gedeon Richter and MOL, the think tank was handed shares in two of the country’s three most valuable companies.

In 2023, MCC received €50 million in dividends from MOL, a firm that receives 65 percent of its oil from Russia, according to an investigation by German broadcaster ZDF.

“It is ironic that MCC Brussels has criticised the transparency of NGOs while exploiting a loophole in the EU lobby register to avoid publishing its funders”, said Nick Aiossa, director of advocacy group Transparency International EU. 

“Perhaps when it lays bare its funding sources, we will see who really is engaging in ‘propaganda by proxy’.”

MCC Brussels denied that it was exploiting a “loophole”, adding: “we reject the idea that we should go further than is demanded by transparency systems”.