Several exhibitions of former Hungarian president's daughter were funded with public money

Several exhibitions of former Hungarian President (2012-2022), János Áder’s daughter were funded by the Hungarian state. Painter Orsolya Áder received a particularly large amount of financial support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the previous administrations. She even held a diplomatic passport for a total of five years, which she only handed in at the beginning of July, according to 24.hu.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the paper’s information that former Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó had personally arranged for the daughter of the former president to receive a diplomatic passport. She received such a passport twice: first between March 2021 and September 2022, and then again in early March 2023. She would have been able to use the latter until the end of 2026 if the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had not revoked it. As we reported at the end of May, during Péter Szijjártó’s tenure as foreign minister, a large number of people (who were not diplomats) were granted diplomatic passports, including Viktor Orbán’s Turkish friend, businessman Adnan Polat, the head of the Center for Fundamental Rights, a popular singer, and Philip Rákay, who regularly emceed Fidesz's political rallies.

But issuing her a diplomatic passport was not the only way the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade helped advance Orsolya Áder’s career under Péter Szijjártó. 24.hu submitted a data request to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which revealed that the exhibitions of the former president’s daughter were funded at least four times with taxpayer money. The ministry helped her hold exhibitions in Shanghai twice, in Cluj-Napoca once, and in Chongqing once. Incidentally, the 2024 exhibition in Chongqing was partially funded by the National Cultural Fund (NKA), which has in recent months been embroiled in a scandal related to the use of state funds.

This February, Orsolya Áder told Blikk that she had deliberately distanced herself from politics and had kept her father’s identity a secret from her friends abroad. She said she did this so that she would not advance in life based on her name or her background.