A draft cardinal law on setting up the independent body to protect constitutional identity was published by the justice ministry on its website and the bill submitted late on Tuesday.

The bill states that Hungarian sovereignty “is increasingly under illegal attack”, and that the 2022 general election campaign of the opposition was influenced by foreign financing.

Hungarian regulations already prohibit parties from accepting foreign money, it states, but the opposition bypassed them by channelling the funds through its political organisations and business associations. So the sovereignty protection office will be tasked with investigating organisations whose activities funded from abroad may influence the outcome of the elections, according to the bill.

The head of the office would be appointed by the President of the Republic at the proposal of the prime minister for a six-year term, starting on February 1, 2024. Further, the Penal Code would be amended: a candidate that made use of foreign money or gained a financial advantage by concealing the origin of the prohibited foreign funding would be criminally liable and face up to three years in prison.

The 12th constitutional amendment also includes the provision of a unique, permanent identifier for the digital management of affairs, while it also states that a trade union may not form or operate in connection with members of the Hungarian Armed Forces.

Opposition Parties Reject Draft Sovereignty Law

Four opposition parties announced on Wednesday that they will submit a joint proposal of a sovereignty law to parliament, saying Hungary’s sovereignty should be protected from the government which exposed the country to Russian and Chinese interests.

At a joint press conference of the Democratic Coalition (DK), Momentum, the Socialists and Párbeszéd, Tímea Szabó of Párbeszéd said that the government’s proposed legislation, submitted to parliament late last evening, would not improve Hungary’s security, independence or sovereignty “by an iota”. 

Szabó said Hungary’s security was at risk because it was dependent on Russian gas and because “its best farmlands and drinking water are being sold out to Chinese battery factories”. The four-party proposal will be submitted next week, and “will attempt to truly improve Hungary’s security, and stop the country from being sold out to foreign interests”, she said.

Momentum head Ferenc Gelencsér called the government’s draft sovereignty protection law a “law designed to intimidate, created on Russian examples”.

The law, he said, was a successor of others like the “Stop Soros law” or the one on the foreign financing of NGOs, legislations that had resulted in infringement procedures in the EU. “Should this proposal be adopted, it is sure to result in another procedure,” he said, adding that it would become yet another reason for the EU to withhold Hungary’s funding.

Zita Gurmai of the Socialists said “there is no governance in Hungary, only propaganda”. “Setting up a propaganda authority is humiliating for the prosecutor’s office, the police and the national security agencies, and is good for nothing except communication tasks and threatening those opposing Fidesz,” she said.

DK’s Gergely Arató said it was not the West, but Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his government that were a threat to Hungary’s sovereignty, insisting that the government was “selling out the country to Russian President Vladimir Putin, China’s leadership and Central Asian dictators”. He said Hungarians had voted in a referendum to join the EU and NATO and share their sovereignty with those communities.

At a separate press conference, green LMP branded the government’s sovereignty bill as “unacceptable”.

The bill submitted to the parliament late on Tuesday “aims to protect the power of the political elite and secure it for the future”, Erzsébet Schmuck, the party’s co-leader said.

A country’s sovereignty, she said, hinged on how independent its economy was, and if a country was made vulnerable to battery production and depended on foreign capital, it could not be said to be sovereign.

The bill should instead repeal the law on strategic investments, she added.

Deutsch: EP Left-Wing Whipping Up Hysteria but 'We Will Protect Hungarian Sovereignty'

The left-wing majority of the European Parliament, according to Fidesz MEP Tamás Deutsch, is playing a “dirty power game” to prevent the unfreezing of EU funds which Hungary is legally entitled to.

“No matter what the left-wing … does, we’ll defend Hungarian sovereignty,” the head of the Fidesz EP delegation told Hungarian journalists in Strasbourg on Tuesday after an EP plenary debate on the rule of law and independence of the judiciary in Hungary.

The aim of the “political hysteria” whipped up by the left wing, he said, was to put pressure on the European Commission and to create a political environment in which the EC would not “have the courage to state the facts” and declare that “Hungary has met all conditions required” for its funding to be unfrozen.

Fidesz and Christian Democrat MEPs stated clearly in the debate that “no matter how much pressure Brussels puts Hungary under, they would still insist that “war madness” must end in Ukraine, that illegal migration must be stopped and the external EU borders protected.

Further, “gender ideology madness” must be opposed, and children protected, by preserving the Hungarian Child Protection Act, Deutsch said. He added that “dollar left” MEPs were using the EP to attack their own country.