In Hungary, a new draft law threatens to sanction NGOs, cultural organisations, media and all other entities that remain independent from the far-right government led by Viktor Orbán. This bill, inspired by the famous ‘foreign agent law’ in Russia, could be voted into effect as soon as mid-June 2025. It includes a plethora of restrictions that would make the survival of media difficult, if not impossible: sanctions, bans on “foreign” funding (from donations to subsidies), threats to cut tax deduction status and even administrative closures of organisations threatening “the Hungarian sovereignty.“
Sphera’s partner 444.hu is – based on government communication – one of the main targets of this new legislation.
Subscribers of our newsletter In Vivo received a special edition with excerpts from this interview and specially selected recommendations on the topic. We are now publishing the full interview of Gábor Kardos, the CEO Magyar Jeti Zrt, the publishing company of 444.hu in which he talks about the potential consequences of this draft law for his publication, Hungary and our continent as a whole.
The interview was conducted by Sphera’s editor-in-chief Alexandra Tyan on May 26. This transcript was edited for coherence and clarity.
Alexandra: What’s the atmosphere in the newsroom today? What are people saying? What conversations are happening?
Gábor: Our newsroom responds with a sense of determination. We are all quite clear: whatever comes, we have a very strong sense of understanding of why we are doing what we are doing and why it’s important, and so do our readers. We are clear on one thing: in whatever way we can comply with any rule or any law, we will do so, but we will not give up on the values and we will not give up on the activities that we consider the basis of our journalistic mission.
Alexandra: The day when you found out about the law, what was going through your head?
Gábor: This “Easter purge”, as [Viktor] Orbán called it, had been promised. We expected similar measures for long, but definitely since he announced it on the 15th of March, on a national holiday commemorating our great revolution of 1848, which, by the way, was partially also for the freedom of media. The very first of the 12 demands towards the emperor was to guarantee the freedom of the press. Celebrating that day, Orbán announced the “spring sweep” or the “spring purge” in which they were planning to wipe out any and all undesirable forces that, in their understanding, are breaching the sovereignty of the state.
And since Orbán himself said it, not just some of his hitmen, we were pretty clear that something was actually coming. It was not just empty threats. And they did change the Constitution. They did change the rules of public gathering. They did openly ban the Pride March. Yet ewhen it came, when the proposal was published, we all understood that this is something significantly harsher than any of our worst speculations.
The key message was: this is not just something that makes our lives, again, inconvenient or challenging. This is a nuke in its own category.
Alexandra: You mentioned it’s a proposal, of course, and it seems to be also a pattern on coming out with these things at the time where people least expect it. The next step, everyone’s expecting it to happen within days, maybe this week, what’s the worst case scenario that you’re considering within the team?
Gábor: Look, the pattern is mixed. There have been cases in which they introduced laws in a way that they would propose the draft on Sunday night, just before midnight, and on Monday or latest Tuesday, the law was already passed. So that was the speediest way in which, for instance, they passed the law that banned the Pride march.
In this particular case, apparently, very cognizantly, they did not pick this fastest route. One reason can be that they wanted to test the waters first. More likely that they wanted even bigger buzz around it, I think, and we share the belief in the editorial team and also among peers in the industry that the purpose is not only to make it painful for us, but make the biggest noise all around Europe. The bigger the scandal is, the better their purposes are achieved. Now it is expected to be voted on in the parliament on the 10th of June. Yet that can still change, and the proposal can still be amended.
Our organisational goals are pretty clear and simple. We are preparing to be able to comply as much as possible, even though that’s the very thing that the rule makers and the law makers themselves do not do. We will do whatever we can to stop it from being accepted and also to press for at least changing and amending its most radically unacceptable dimensions.
But full compliance is hardly possible as the text is so vague and so unspecific. So the worst case scenario is that as ultima sanctio they identify multiple cases of breaches after an organisation is blacklisted and ban its operations – but this may not be the real intention just yet.
Alexandra: You mentioned earlier that one of the two reasons that they might have taken their time with accepting the proposal and finalizing it is to create buzz. What do they want to achieve with this buzz?
Gábor: We need to take one step back. The clear aim of this government is gaining or maintaining political power. So this law is apparently targeted against media organisations and NGOs, but that’s only the surface. The real goal is to achieve a stronger chance of maintaining or even increasing their political grip [editors’ note: the next parliamentary elections are scheduled in spring 2026]. It actually serves as a basis or as grounds to pick a fight with the EU itself. Should the EU swallow this as it is, then the rule of law is clearly gone. Yet if Hungary is struck with political pressures or restrictions[editors’ note: this is a reference to Article 7 of the European treaties and rule of law conditionality mechanism for EU funds. As of 2025, some EU funds for Hungarians are already suspended], the government will have a stronger case at blaming all the current economic and political hardships of our country on Brussels. Hard-hitting independent organisations and media is a desirable side effect.
We do expect the publisher of 444, Magyar Jeti, being blacklisted. But even for all unlisted organisations the law will remain a threat, a potential source of blackmailing.
This law is all about “shut up or shut down”. They do have the power to discontinue your operation as an independent media entity, and they can also technically interpret the regulations within the law in a much milder manner where we could continue to operate, even in harsh circumstances. It is impossible to predict now how the law will be implemented.
Alexandra: I know you’ve been consulting with lawyers for the past few days. Is there within 444, but also within generally independent media and social society in Hungary right now, other talks about this potentially being also expanded onto individuals, journalists, activists, etc, or is that not on the cards yet?
Gábor: I think everything is on the cards. One of the scariest dimensions of this law is that it signals very clearly that there are hardly any limits on silencing critical voices.
As it is proposed now, the draft law is already targeting some individuals directly by declaring leaders PEPs (Publicly Engaged Persons) and forcing them to make public wealth declarations. Carving rather deep into the privacy of these non-elected individuals not handling any public resources. Some provisions of the draft threaten investigations looking into electronic devices or data storage of companies and individuals. But it’s not those elected for office, it’s private entrepreneurs, people who have leading roles in NGOs, whoever they want. And if for instance board members of an organisation do not want to sacrifice their complete privacy, the entire operation of their organisation is at risk. Exposed persons will be torn apart by government media and people knowing them privately will be also scared of what consequences they might face.
The law is also vague on targeting individual journalists. But by just a stroke of a pen, they can amend it and can say that foreign funding for a YouTuber is as much of a sin or a “criminal act” as it is for the first organisations that are now targeted. What was legal yesterday becomes retroactively illegal from tomorrow. That is indeed the suspension of the rule of law.
Alexandra: My next question would be about your readers. We know that you get a huge support from your readers, both in terms of consuming and supporting your work and also financially, and it’s a real community around your publication. What has their reaction been? What feedback and support have you received from them?
Gábor: We do feel that they are more engaged than ever. We are seeing a tremendous peak in traffic. We see tremendous peaks in their direct responses, communicating with us on all platforms. We do see elevated levels of engagement in our subscription and of our voluntary donation programmes. I think that this creates a much stronger sense of responsibility for all of us to protect what we have. This is something that we try to emphasise, even if we don’t communicate all the time: this is not about the media “whining” about its own challenges or difficulties. This is about a threat to one of the very last bastions of freedom in our society. People’s right to get informed and the right of the media, of those who inform to deliver facts and even to express opinion. These are at stake here. And that’s not about those voices who are to be silenced. It’s about everyone else who had been listening to that and who would in the future still want to listen to that. I think that the readers and the entire society understands it.
Alexandra: And outside of the journalist community, what’s the response from the general public in Hungary?
Gábor: I don’t think it’s very easy to tell. Hungarian society has obviously been split in a very painful manner. Most likely, those who have been critical of the ways the power was practiced in the past one and a half decades are alarmed, and at this point, even more outraged. And we see signs of that, as a protest already happened [by May 26 when the interview took place]. But again, we are talking about a draft that hasn’t even been officially discussed and we are far from knowing the final version. But people do react.
And there’s the political side that sides with the government. There were critical voices even from there. Even from government friendly talking heads and media you do feel some sense of caution.
Alexandra: Of course, this didn’t happen overnight. What were the first signs of the suffocation of independent media in Hungary?
Gábor: I am not a scholar of this field, and this could take an infinite article in itself. But most certainly, the government led by Orbán in those last 15 years brought a very cognizant process of silencing and repressing critical voices in Hungary. It started with a very harsh media law as soon as they came into power in 2010 with a new authority overseeing operations with some crazy powers.
Then came the actual domination of the media market. They took control by simply buying them out – financed directly or indirectly with state money. They pushed investors out, discontinued some outlets, made life unbearable for others. Add a complete control and subordination of all public media services and the National News Agency.
Most naturally, it continued with the complete distortion of allocating resources. The entire advertising market is distorted by political pressures. Advertising agencies and media houses are often owned by cronies of the regime, while the government itself became the single largest source of ad spending in Hungary. Even in less closely government-related cases, state-dependent industries spend their own advertising money in line with the government’s informal but strict expectations.
There were also the well known stories around the allocation of radio frequencies stopped media mergers, the advertising tax, or on how broadcasting companies could generate distribution revenues, and many more.
And perhaps most importantly, independent media entities are also constantly denied access to information. We were having to file special requests to get answers to questions that should be always directly and immediately answered by any responsible holder of power. This is possibly one of the most critical dimensions of media not having its true opportunity to remain critical and somehow balance the powers.
It had been a very, very long way and a very large number of steps that led all the way up to just about a year ago [editor’s note: in late 2023], when they introduced the Sovereignty Protection Law, which created the body, the Sovereignty Protection Office.
This is the very institution which started to monitor and ‘study’ supposedly sovereignty breaching activities of many entities, most importantly, media outlets. This office was created in a way that it would not have real legal power, it was practically toothless. But the purpose of its very existence was to establish the concepts [of sovereignty breaches by media organisations]. [This office] was completely manipulated, completely biased, and they do not even try to put any evidence or reasoning behind their statements.
They also spend millions of Hungarian forints spreading straightforward lies around YouTube and everywhere. The goal is for audiences to believe that these companies and these media outlets are practically foreign agents.
Now, if the law is accepted more or less as it looks right now, then this is not one single step further. This is a multitude of steps further in a single round, getting farther away from the democratic values of the European Union and closer to autocratic regimes.
Alexandra: This “foreign agent law”, we see it being adopted in countries across the world. in the European region, let’s say. It started with Russia, then Georgia, then it was Hungary. For countries that are at risk of getting on the same course, what would you tell them from where you stand right now, this position? Is there a way of avoiding it? Is there a way of doing something about it to protect the independent media?
Gábor: I think that the only opportunity that we have as believers of rule of law and believers of democracy and free media is to recognise it quite early and organise on a much wider scale as societies. I know this sounds really abstract and really vague, but there’s no other protection because political powers can shift from one side to the other, and that’s fine. That’s the nature of democracy. But the very concept of the media becoming the target of power-seeking groups and being discredited and disinformation used so cognizantly by those in power even to undermine the trust in media, these are all the inputs for ultimately arriving at a situation which is possibly not solvable: when people are deprived of their opportunity to make well informed decisions.
So I think that the global political trends have finally become so harsh that many societies have started to recognize that they threaten even the most mature democracies. And that same case is applicable to the media sphere as well. If we are recognizing the threats too late then the political actors will just simply be faster and act swifter than anything that we can withstand.
We certainly do not expect that European institutions can change the political course in any country and that’s fine that way. But European level regulations could assure some freedoms of media that at the moment local governments are eager to undermine.
Alexandra: Do you expect any meaningful action from the EU? And if so, what do you think could be a real tangible help to deal with this?
Gábor: I think the technical part of it is painfully simple, even though I do understand that the legal process leading to it could be very complex. Should this law be accepted, the ultimate aim needs to be its suspension. It cannot stay in place. Now, the political reality of the EU suspending that does exist, European bodies need to request it and the relevant courts can decide on it. Should it take as long as, let’s say, in the case of the former Civilian law in Hungary, which took about four years to get suspended, then it would most likely be just post-mortem. If it’s fast enough, then it could serve some good purposes, though it would also inevitably serve the political purposes of triggering the conflict that the Hungarian government seemingly seeks. Still this law should simply not be in effect.
Most importantly, I believe that the responsibility is in the hands of the Hungarian people and media entities. We need to communicate very openly so that everybody understands what is happening and what is at stakeIt certainly makes communication harder that there might only be a couple of entities on the list first, so the world will indeed go forward, the holders of power can claim we shouted wolf again That’s why it is so crucial that many people understand the true depth of the threat the proposal holds.
Alexandra: And if we’re talking about, generally, Europe and Europeans, especially in countries where maybe people feel that this law it’s something that doesn’t really concern them, what can Europe do? What can Europeans do to help?
Gábor: I think they can do two things. One is very technical that as long as the law is not accepted, financial support is legal towards Hungarian entities. And the trick is that it is urgent, we need to secure resources to survive a period when no international funding would be flowing into Hungary. In our specific case, about 85% of all our revenues does come from inside Hungary, so Magyar Jeti is not a foreign-funded entity -even if the Sovereignty Protection Office claims otherwise without any proof.
But the second is the more important thing: Europeans should focus on their own environment and recognise these early patterns, and not allow other [European] political systems shift towards similar extremities.
Alexandra: When you were talking to your team, what were the words of encouragement? Were you optimistic at all?
Gábor: Absolutely. I think determination is key. This legal threat that we are facing right now seems inevitable, will cause harm. So we will have some difficult times, and we don’t even know how long that will last . We do know that the mission of providing free and fact based information, and also critical and freely expressed opinion is crucial to be carried on. Not for the entities that are under attack now, but for a healthy society. We are not charity organisations, but still have a sense of mission, and that holds us together. No matter what harshness comes into our way, we are determined to continue.
I think it is even strengthened by the pressures we are facing.
They may scare or intimidate many of us, but as a community, we hold strong.
