Soros Foundation to be restructured to focus on non-EU countries

The Open Society Foundations (OSF), founded by George Soros, are almost completely withdrawing from the European Union, Szabad Európa has reported. The reason given for their decision is that the institutions and governments of the European Union spend a lot of money on the same topics as OSF, so they will focus on other parts of the world where they can operate more efficiently.

Last Friday, all Hungarian organisations that have benefited from Open Society Foundations' funds received a letter from the institution informing them that the organisation is effectively ceasing its activities in the European Union and moving its resources to other parts of the world.

The letter also cites the statement of the Board of Directors' decision, according to which OSF's management has "decided on a radical change of strategic direction" in order to maximise the impact of the organisation's resources. As a result, "a large part" of OSF's activities within the European Union will be discontinued and resources previously dedicated to Europe will be concentrated elsewhere in the world, while European resources will be "extremely limited".

The decision was explained by the fact that the EU institutions and governments spend significant amounts of money on human rights, freedom and diversity, which are the very areas in which OSF is active. They wrote that in the future, they would focus on Europe only in the context of its "role in major global issues".

According to a letter in its possession, Szabad Európa wrote that little is known about the details even within the OSF, including what will happen in EU countries where EU institutions and the government are not spending significant funds on human rights or diversity issues.

The OSF's reorganisation is planned for next year, so its European programmes could cease as early as 2024. George Soros, who has turned 93, announced in June that he would hand over control of his financial empire to his son Alexander Soros.

Update: 444 contacted the London headquarters of the Open Society Foundations, which did not deny the news. Foundations spokesperson Alissa Sadler responded that the recalibration of the European operation is part of a global reorganisation of the foundations, with the entire OSF operation being reviewed and redesigned, including the areas of democracy, human rights and climate change.

They will also continue to support NGOs in Europe, including groups working on the EU's foreign policy, the Roma community, and human rights, democracy and accountable governance in the region, and the spokesperson specifically mentioned Ukraine, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan and the Western Balkans here.

The restructuring of current operations would also entail significant redundancies of no less than 40 per cent worldwide. According to 444, redundancies have already begun in several OSF offices in Europe, including in Berlin, Barcelona and London, where a very significant number of employees have been made redundant.

We updated the title of our article following the reaction of the OSF.