From the 2026 Budget Audit
80 million Ft for an advocacy foundation whose supporters could fund it themselves.
A private foundation lobbying for Hungarian minority interests at EU level receives a statutory state transfer — the kind of work voluntary membership dues exist to support.
80 million Ft — roughly 20 Ft per household per year — directed to one foundation's EU advocacy without a competitive award or voluntary-support test.
What you see — and what you don't
The seen: a foundation doing advocacy work it believes in. The unseen: everyone whose tax funds that work whether or not they share the cause — replacing the revealed support of genuine adherents with a budget-line allocation no one voted on.
Objection
"Hungarian communities abroad deserve a voice in Brussels; this funding makes that possible."
Answer
Advocacy that commands genuine support among its adherents can be funded by them — directly, voluntarily, at whatever scale they value it. A state transfer substitutes a political appropriation for that test and converts the foundation's incentive from serving its supporters to retaining its line.
Share if you think advocacy groups should live on what their supporters are willing to give.
The analyst's verdict
Support for the Foundation for the European Representation of Hungarian National Communities
Rationale
This is a transfer to a private foundation whose advocacy activity its members and supporters could fund voluntarily. Advocacy and representation of a cause — here, the interests of Hungarian national communities at European level — is exactly the kind of activity that voluntary association exists to carry. The state cannot determine the optimal level or direction of advocacy effort: how much representation, on which questions, with what emphasis, is a matter of the dispersed judgement of the people whose cause it is, and there is no price signal or calculation by which a budget line can substitute for that judgement. Where a foundation pursues an objective its supporters genuinely value, voluntary contributions reveal that valuation; a tax-funded line substitutes a political appropriation for that revealed support and converts the foundation's incentive from serving its supporters to retaining its line.
Transition mechanism
Delete the line in the 2026 cycle. The foundation continues on member contributions, private donations, and any project grants it can win competitively.
Affected groups
The foundation and its staff. The cause of Hungarian minority representation is not affected by the funding source; it is advanced by whatever voluntary support it commands.
Szabad Társadalom Intézet
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