Boglárka Bólya is a ministerial commissioner at the Ministry of EU Affairs in Hungary. A lawyer by profession, she held various positions in the European Parliament between 2003 and 2019, most recently as adviser to then-President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani. In 2019, she returned to Hungary, and served first as deputy state secretary for EU relations, then as ministerial commissioner responsible for the preparation of the Hungarian EU Presidency. Recently, she has been tasked to promote the sovereign reform process in the EU, including shedding light on the dubious funding of NGOs by the European Commission that has made headlines in recent months—billions of euros of European taxpayers’ money have been used to spread the Commission’s left-wing political agenda and to undermine sovereignist-conservative governments across Europe.
As ministerial commissioner at the Ministry of European Union affairs, your role is to examine and draw the public’s attention to some of the questionable NGO-funding practices of the EU. What exactly does your work entail?
My work as ministerial commissioner serves three main purposes.
First, to support the reform efforts of European sovereignist forces. We want the European Union to return to its original role, as laid down in the founding treaties. We do not want a centralised EU that acts like an empire. We want strong cooperation between strong, sovereign nation states. The crises of recent years, and the results of the 2024 European elections, both clearly signalled that the status quo in Brussels is unsustainable. We intend to be at the forefront of this reform process and change. Member States must keep control over their own decision-making, the EU institutions should return to their fundamental role laid down in the Treaties and should respect the limits of their competences.
Second, we work together with the Patriots for Europe to shed light on how the Brussels bureaucracy applies double standards in rule of law procedures and gradually expands its influence beyond what the treaties intended.
And this brings me to the third part of my mandate: exposing irregularities in NGO funding. While soft power has long been used as a tool to advance political and ideological objectives worldwide, the way certain Brussels-funded NGOs now operate has raised serious concerns. These organisations, often presented as independent civil society actors, are in fact politically active and seek to influence national debates and decision-making processes. EU taxpayers’ money should not be used to finance groups that promote foreign interests or destabilise democratic governance in member states. My task is to help expose and, where possible, prevent such interference.
The Hungarian government has long claimed that certain NGOs are actively promoting progressive, liberal values, and are engaging in anti-government activities, partly with the help of European Union funds. However, in the rest of Europe, the issue of funding NGOs has only really come to light since Donald Trump moved into the White House in January. His administration immediately started investigating what American taxpayers’ money was being spent on, including the progressive activities USAID was funding all over the world. Why did Europe have to wait for Donald Trump?
The parallels with USAID are indeed striking. Through USAID, an entire network of NGOs was financed to promote ideological narratives aligned with external foreign policy objectives. We see very similar patterns in the EU today. Brussels, too, supports its own ideological narrative with public money. We have uncovered that since 2014, approximately €62 million have been spent directly on Hungary-based NGOs that are clearly political actors as they exert political pressure. This is not speculation—this is what the European Commission’s own public databases revealed.
While these platforms provide some background information, there is much more they do not reveal. We still do not know exactly who stands behind these transactions, how funds flow between entities, or what lobbying activities are carried out in exchange. The European institutions have a duty to ensure that taxpayers’ money is not used for hidden political lobbying or ideological campaigns, but to serve the true interests of European citizens.
When the Trump administration cut off funding through USAID, many of these same NGOs—more than a thousand actually—began complaining that they were “under attack” and started lobbying the EU to fill the gap. That is precisely what is happening today: there is pressure on Brussels to become the main patron of these ideologically biased NGOs.
Even the European Court of Auditors (ECA) has said that EU funding for NGOs is too opaque and suffers from a lack of transparency.
Exactly. We don’t know to what extent these NGOs are being financed. The ECA is basically saying what we are saying: available public information is fragmented, recipients are often misclassified, secondary beneficiaries are hidden, and lobbying activities are not properly monitored. And then there is the European Commission’s own admission earlier in March that certain NGOs under the LIFE programme which were granted public funds had engaged in “undue lobbying activities”. All these revelations are slowly reaching a boiling point, and European citizens deserve to know what their money is being spent on.
What can you as ministerial commissioner do? Do you have allies, for example, in other European Union member states who also want to uncover the truth?
The Hungarian government is actively raising these concerns with Brussels. Minister of EU Affairs János Bóka has raised the issue at the General Affairs Council, sent a letter on the matter to EU Commissioner Hadja Lahbib, and we continue to bring this issue to the table at every possible forum. Members of the European Parliament in the Patriots Group are also very active—they initiated an inquiry committee to examine the issue.
As for my role, I maintain direct contact with the European Commission and engage in regular discussions with its representatives. Having lived in Brussels for sixteen years and worked in the European Parliament, I understand how the system works—which is certainly an advantage. But the key is to keep drawing attention to these issues and to keep knocking on the door, asking for answers. We seek to engage with the institutions in a constructive manner. If common ground can be found, we are ready to work together to address these concerns in a way that strengthens trust and transparency across Europe.
And we are not alone. This issue is gaining traction in other member states as well. France recently adopted legislation to counter foreign interference and protect its sovereignty, while Slovakia has also tightened the rules around NGO funding. So yes, we are looking for allies—and encouragingly, we are seeing growing interest from several governments across Europe.
The Patriots for Europe group is trying to force the European Commission to release the contracts on NGO-funding. But the Patriots seem to be alone in their quest for the truth. They are faced with the big bloc of the Greens, the liberals, the socialists and the centrist European People’s Party (EPP) which are all interested in maintaining the status quo, and leaving stones unturned. How can anything be achieved with this sort of blocking majority?
The Patriots have managed to expand their room for manoeuvre in a relatively short period of time, and they are making their voices heard when it comes to the abuses and concentration of power we are witnessing. Even some members of the EPP have criticised the Commission over the NGO lobbying scandal.
Sovereignist forces—including the Patriots and the conservative ECR group—have proposed setting up an investigative committee, but realistically, I doubt the European Parliament’s Conference of Presidents, which decides on such matters, will allow this to happen, should the EPP Group remain closely aligned with the mainstream left-liberal parties.
Even so, we are pressing ahead. Despite the obstacles, we will continue to draw public attention to these serious concerns and seek to rally as many allies to our cause as possible. We believe that justice will finally prevail and that time is on our side.
It seems that the European Commission, a supposedly impartial EU institution, which should be serving the interests of member states, is happily spreading left-wing propaganda and operating arbitrarily, with no one able to hold it to account. Would you agree?
Yes. The European Parliament, according to the Treaties, should be the one that holds the Commission to account. There have been many debates on the subject in recent months, with Hungarian conservative MEPs regularly speaking up and demanding answers. The Commission seems to be indifferent to these calls. Let’s not forget that many of these NGOs work hand in hand with the Commission, and only reports by left-wing NGOs were cited during the attacks launched by EU institutions on Hungary in the last fifteen years, including the Article 7 procedure and the withholding of EU funds. Many of these entities are tied closely to the EU institutions, since they significantly contribute to the annual rule of law report of the Commission.
One must follow the money to understand what is really at stake. This is not just about NGOs—it is about power, influence, targeting those diverging from the mainstream or questioning the status quo, and ultimately it is a quiet dismantling of national sovereignty through seemingly neutral actors. That is why exposing this network remains one of the most important battles in Europe today.
You mentioned that one of your tasks is to promote the efforts made by European sovereignist forces to reform the EU. Is there a glimmer of hope for the patriotic-sovereignist forces in Europe to turn the EU away from where it is currently heading—towards a federalist, centralised empire?
I spent sixteen years in the European Parliament and got to know its inner workings well. Over the past decade, federalist initiatives have clearly accelerated. Every crisis—from the waves of illegal migration to the pandemic, and the energy crisis—has been used as an excuse to centralise more power in Brussels, while every strategic decision to these crises failed.
The Conference on the Future of Europe (2021-2022) was a perfect example. It was supposed to give citizens a real say in shaping the Union’s future. Instead, the Brussels elite used it to push forward their own ideological federalist agenda, discarding every proposal which called for a return to a Europe of nation states. Even though Hungary was one of the most active Member States in the process, citizens’ calls for repatriating competences and restoring the original role of the institutions were swept aside in a heartbeat.
This federalist mindset has only hardened over time. As the institutional reform, the EU has fallen away from the citizens and became the power project of the Brussels elite. Starting with Former Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who openly viewed the Commission as a political actor. His successor, Ursula von der Leyen, has gone even further, turning the Commission into an ideological vehicle, instead of being the guardian of the Treaties. This was on full display last October when Prime Minister Viktor Orbán presented Hungary’s EU presidency programme. While criticism from the left-wing parties was expected, it was unprecedented and shocking to see the Commission President deliver a partisan campaign speech openly attacking Hungary. This clearly signalled how far the Commission has drifted from its original role. The European Parliament has become the servant of a narrow federalist circle increasingly detached from the electorate. Decisions in Brussels are more and more made on the basis of political blackmail and double standards.
Even so, I remain hopeful. The rise of sovereignist movements across Europe is undeniable. These patriotic forces are more united and determined than ever before. Together, we can—and I believe we will—push forward with the reform efforts that Europe desperately needs.
Of course, as time goes on and it becomes increasingly evident that we were right, the attacks on Hungary will only intensify. Yet the louder they shout and the harder they try to isolate us—whether through NGO influence, economic pressure or political proxies—the clearer it becomes that we are standing on the right side of history. And we are not alone. Across Europe, more and more voices are speaking out and joining the cause. We are ready to build alliances with all who agree that the European Union must serve not the ambitions of elites, but the citizens of Europe.
