This report by ASSEDEL (L’Association européenne pour la défense des droits et des libertés) critically scrutinizes the Hungarian draft law entitled on “Transparency in the Public life,” submitted on 13 May 2025 by the ruling Fidesz Party.
Despite its innocuous-sounding title, the proposed legislation constitutes the most far-reaching assault on civil society, media freedom, and liberal democracy in Hungary since Viktor Orbán’s return to power.
Most damning are the sweeping powers the draft law grants to the Hungarian Sovereignty Protection Office, enabling it to surveil, blacklist, financially penalize and dissolve any organizations deemed a threat to Hungarian “sovereignty” – a term left dangerously vague. These powers are granted without adequate legal safeguards, and appeals are routed through the Hungarian Supreme Court (the Kúria), a judiciary whose independence has been increasingly compromised.
The draft law targets organizations receiving minimal foreign funding, including from EU sources, and imposes harsh sanctions without procedural safeguards or meaningful legal remedy.
This report demonstrates that the draft law contravenes fundamental freedoms enshrined in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Treaty on the European Union, the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, as well as the binding case law of the European Court of Justice. It further highlights the draft law’s misuse of anti-money laundering frameworks for political purposes and its serious implications for the EU as a single market, particularly for the free movement of capital and services.
Given the severity that this draft law poses to democratic norms and to the rule of law both across the EU and on the international scale, this report concludes with concrete policy recommendations directed at the relevant EU bodies and the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
These include calls for:
1) Immediate infringement proceedings initiated by the European Commission;
2) Interim measures before the European Court of Justice;
3) Adopting a resolution, on behalf of the Parliamentary Assembly of the CoE and the UNHRC, condemning the draft law and urging its suspension.
ASSEDEL calls on all the relevant institutions to take a unified and swift response to prevent irreversible democratic backsliding, as well as to protect domestic checks and balances in Hungary and elsewhere to prevent power concentration in government hands.
To read the full report, click ici.