CINS: Hungarian PM spreads influence in northern Serbia by donations

Attila Kisbenedek/AFP

The Hungarian Government had donated over 70 million Euro in the last ten years in sports, churches and media in Serbia’s northern Vojvodina province, the Centre for Investigative Journalism (CINS) said on Friday, quoting interlocutors saying it was the Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban’s Prime attempt to spread his country’s influence over that Serbia’s region.

CINS’ report listed Sports Academy, expensive fence for a soccer stadium, restoration of the church in which the priests called people to vote for Orban’s Fidesz party.

Budapest also financed news contents and the buying properties for media close to the party. The Hungarian taxpayers paid some 12 million Euro for such Hungarian media in Serbia from 2011 to 2019.

CINS report detailed the financing of media such as RTV Pannon, which had been working for 15 years in Hungarian and Serbian.

The report says the ‘Bethlan Gabor’ Foundation donated over nine million Euro to those media and allocated another 3.5 million Euro in 2020, but it is not known whether that amount was paid to TV Pannon and other outlets.

CINS also reported that the Catholic Church of St. Joseph the Worker received 16,850 Euro in 2012, but not for its religious needs. The money was for a fence around one out of three soccer playgrounds, nets and small stands.