Perverse Privatisation or the Dark Arts of Establishing a Parallel State

Moving Public Money into Private Foundations in Hungary

20 May 2021

Edit Zgut-Przybylska

Visegrad Insight Fellow

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has begun building a parallel power structure, the operation of which depends on people loyal to him. But would it allow the Hungarian prime minister to exercise control over the state and society from the opposition?

Private foundations have become the main venue of capturing an unprecedented amount of public money in Hungary on 27 April. Several public assets, ranging from state companies’ stakes through worthy properties like castles, theatres, resorts and parks to higher education institutions, became the property of private foundations.

The total value of appropriated wealth is estimated at 2.75 billion euros – still far from the full amount – but already included assets of the higher education institutions.

While the Orbán government claims that the universities would benefit from the new model, it aimed at extending its ideological influence. The prime minister made it clear that members of the supervisory boards of the public foundations were selected on the basis of their ideological commitment.

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Edit Zgut-Przybylska

Visegrad Insight Fellow

Visegrad Insight Fellow and re:constitution fellow. Political scientist and sociologist, a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Vice-president of Amnesty International Hungary and a guest lecturer at the Foreign Service Institute of the State Department of the United States. Focusing on informal power and populism in the context of Hungarian and Polish democratic backsliding.

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