Danube Institute uses public funds to promote Hungarian government abroad, Átlátszó finds

The Danube Institute, maintained by the Lajos Batthyány Foundation (BLA), has spent more than half a billion forints of public funds to pay foreign guest lecturers and writers, online civil watchdog Átlátszó learned from the BLA's contracts. Several guest lecturers were asked to write articles that would positively portray the Orbán government in the United States.

The Batthyány Lajos Foundation, which has been operating since 1991, was transformed by the government into a public interest trust fund four years ago, when it also received a capital injection so it would meet the minimum capital requirement for trusts. This was the foundation that in 2023, gave two billion forints to the Centre for Fundamental Rights, (which has organized the CPAC Hungary events) and the BLA is also the one maintaining the Danube Institute. According to Átlátszó, the Danube Institute is one of the government's main tools for networking abroad, mainly in the US. The institute is primarily involved in organising conferences and funding the work of visiting researchers.

In September, the investigative portal submitted a public interest information request to the Lajos Batthyány Foundation, asking for its contracts with foreign guest lecturers between 2022 and 2024, including the ones relating to the geopolitical summits held during that time.

The contracts reveal that the Danube Institute's payments to guest lecturers and speakers have increased dramatically over the past three years. In 2022, the institute paid researchers a total of HUF 76.76 million. Last year, the salaries of visiting researchers rose to HUF 179 million, and this year, the Danube Institute has already paid researchers HUF 284.6 million.

However, the institute's foreign partners were not only paid for for being visiting researchers, but also for attending conferences. For example, speakers at geopolitical summits organised jointly with the Heritage Foundation were also paid a significant sum. The institute paid 36.6 million forints to a guest at the conference, even though the general fee ranges between 200 and 400 thousand forints, according to Átlátszó. Speakers at geopolitical conferences received 10.27 million forints in 2022, 13.9 million forints last year and 44 million forints at this year's event.

The investigative portal also learned from the contracts that a guest lecturer had agreed to write a study on Hungarian migration policy in exchange for 8,400 USD (3.1 million HUF). In September, a similar study was published on the Danube Institute's website, authored by Melissa Ford Maldonado, the policy director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation who worked in the White House during Donald Trump's presidency.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation is also a member of the Project 2025 Advisory Board. The Heritage Foundation's project is said to be the unofficial programme of Donald Trump's second presidency, aimed at transforming US governance. It would fill all federal jobs with people loyal to Trump, thus endowing the president with enormous power.

The contracts of Rod Dreher, an American journalist living in Hungary, can also be identified. Dreher is the head of the Danube Institute's network project and has received funding for several of his books, according to Átlátszó. The journalist worked for a gross monthly salary of $5,666 (HUF 2.1 million) in 2022, but his most recent contract is for $8,750 (HUF 3.2 million) per month. Two contracts worth $14,000 (HUF 5.2 million) have also been found, which included a request for researchers to attend Tusványos 2024 the Hungarian government's Free Summer University and Student Camp in Transylvania.

Another visiting researcher from abroad has agreed to write at least two articles a month, each of at least 650 words, for US and European newspapers, for a monthly salary of $4,500 (1.68 million forints). The 2024 contract included a list of approved press products. According to Átlátszó, the contract was signed by Michael O'Shea, whose articles have appeared in most of the publications on the list. In an article published in The American Mind, for example, he defended Viktor Orbán, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and the pro-Russian Georgian government.

The activities of visiting researchers paid by the Danube Institute seem to be primarily aimed at making the Hungarian government look good in the United States. However, under US law, lobbying by foreign government agencies is legal only if the person involved registers with the Foreign Agents Registrations Act (FARA), which currently includes several lobbyists who have received money through Hungarian diplomatic missions abroad.

We have previously reported on the Hungarian government having paid three American right-wing lobbyists several million forints through the Lajos Batthyány Foundation in exchange for providing positive coverage about the Orbán government's measures in their articles.