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As of: 05/20/2022 7:02 p.m
A private institute in Budapest wants to promote a new “patriotic generation”. The Hungarian state donated billions to this. The Konrad Adenauer Foundation is also integrated into its network.
The Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), according to the website of the CDU-affiliated Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS), is a “unique community of values” that is committed “to valuable goals”. The educational institution, for its part, describes what these goals look like on the Internet: The vision of the MCC is to “prepare the next patriotic generation”.
research of ARD political magazine contrasts show how the KAS partner tries to network with nationalists all over the world. Although the MCC presents itself as an academic institution, it is neither a college nor a university. It offers additional qualifications for around 4,000 students, organizes political talk groups and publishes books.
“The ideology that is cultivated there – even under an intellectual guise – is radical, nationalistic and dangerous for a pluralistic, multi-ethnic society,” says conflict researcher Annika Brockschmidt, who has written a book on the religious right.
When asked, a spokesman for the MCC denied that the institution was “right-wing extremist”. One is party and ideologically independent. However, numerous statements and publications from the environment of the institute as well as cash flows nourish doubts about this independence.
“No to mass migration”
The German political scientist Werner Patzelt, who has been a guest lecturer at the MCC since last year, claims opposite contrasts: “As a matter of fact, a large proportion of those working at the MCC sympathize with Fidesz or belong to Fidesz.”
There is evidence that among those responsible for the MCC are high-ranking actors from the Hungarian governing party. Lifetime Chairman of the Supporting Foundation is Balázs Orbán, who, as Political Director, reports directly to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (no relation).
The political scientist Patzelt has been a guest lecturer at the MCC since 2021.
Image: imago/Max Stein
At the “National Conservatism Conference” (NatCon) in Brussels at the end of March, where the MCC acted as a sponsor, Balázs Orbán made it clear where he stood: “We say ‘no’ to mass migration and we remain committed to defending our borders.” , he announced. “We will protect our children through a referendum from the LGBTQ propaganda that has already taken over the kindergartens and elementary schools of some Western societies.”
Such a “conquest” does not exist, but the claim was applauded in Brussels. Viktor Orbán’s Hungary acts as a “blueprint” for the NatCon environment, says Brockschmidt. The dream of the national conservatives is “a Christian-nationalist or an ethno-nationalist state, governed authoritarian, where right-wing Christians have a dominant position in all areas of society”.
Opaque foundation construction
Brockschmidt considers the MCC to be a Hungarian government project. This is also indicated by the gigantic assets that the state shifted to the MCC Foundation by parliamentary resolution in 2020, including ten percent of the shares in the oil company MOL and the pharmaceutical giant Gedeon Richter. In total, the government donated the equivalent of around 1.4 billion euros to the MCC.
In its most recent rule of law report, the EU Commission criticized this shifting of state assets into a private trust as opaque. The Vice-President of the EU Parliament, Katarina Barley, is calling for the Orbán system to be blown up. “MCC is an educational institution, and education must be kept free from ideological indoctrination,” Barley told contrasts. In order for science and teaching to be independent, the MCC would have to give up its foundation structure.
Friedrich Merz in Hungarian
Cooperation with foreign, especially German, partners is part of Viktor Orbán’s legitimation strategy, says Barley. You have to be careful not to play this game.
For its own appreciation, the MCC even uses the name Friedrich Merz: The book by the CDU chairman “New Times. New Responsibility.” was published in Hungarian by MCC-Hausverlag in early 2022. It is the only edition in another language so far.
In the offer of the MCC publishing house, Merz is now between right-wing authors such as David Engels, who – also translated – is thinking about a “storming of the parliaments”. The Hungarian edition of “Finis Germania” by the controversial historian Rolf Peter Sieferle (“Didn’t the ‘Auschwitz lie’ be punished as a kind of blasphemy?”) was made possible by MCC-Hausverlag.
Merz doesn’t seem to care. questions from contrasts the CDU chairman did not want to answer the question – for example whether he considered it appropriate to publish his book in such an environment.
Cooperation with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation
The party foundation KAS regards the MCC as a partner. Her international office organizes joint events with the institute several times a year – most recently in February, when Fidesz politician and Minister of State Gergely Gulyás tried to convey the narrative of a unified German press. “There is no diversity in the German press,” Gulyás claimed in his speech.
Minister of State Gulyás claimed at an event co-organized by the KAS that there is a “uniform press” in Germany.
Image: EPA
KAS office manager Michael Winzer sat in the audience and watched. “I have to firmly counter the impression that Fidesz propaganda is being spread at our events,” Winzer said contrasts. His justification: The KAS was just one organizer among many. The date itself was only announced on the KAS website as a cooperation with the MCC.
The intensive contact with the CDU-affiliated foundation helps the MCC, among other things, to attract guest lecturers from Germany, as the case of Werner Patzelt shows. The professor emeritus, himself a member of the CDU, says he first came into contact with the MCC through the KAS.