Hungarian official unsure if contested transparency bill will ever re-emerge

By Catarina Demony

LONDON (Reuters) -Hungarian Foreign Ministry state secretary Levente Magyar said on Wednesday he was unsure if a postponed parliamentary debate and vote on transparency legislation governing foreign-funded groups would "ever re-emerge."

Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Fidesz Party submitted a bill to parliament on May 14 that would draft a list of organisations that collect foreign funding and restrict or shut them down if they are deemed to threaten Hungary's sovereignty and culture.

The bill has been widely criticised by Hungarian news outlets, think tanks and civic rights groups. Street protests have occurred and scores of editors from leading European news outlets signed a petition last month calling for Orban's nationalist government to scrap the legislation.

The vote was originally scheduled to happen in mid-June and approval was expected as Fidesz holds a majority.

"There was a lot of controversy around the bill, and there was a lot of internal debate and discussion and dispute around the bill, so the initiators of the bill saw it appropriate to revoke it for now," Magyar told Reuters on the sidelines of an event at the Hungarian embassy in London.

"I'm not sure if it will ever ... re-emerge again," he said, adding that the earliest the bill could return to parliament for debate is autumn. "I don't know about any determined decision... to bring this back."

Orban, in power since 2010, pledged in March to crack down on foreign funding of independent media, opposition politicians and nongovernmental organisations in what critics said was a move to strengthen his position ahead of elections due in 2026, when he faces a challenge from a new opposition party.

(Reporting by Catarina Demony; Editing by Rod Nickel)