Main the nation’s ideological assault is the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (generally known as MCC), an Orbán-backed suppose tank. The federal government-affiliated group opened a department in Brussels in 2022, providing an unapologetically conservative tackle EU affairs because it seeks to disrupt the Brussels suppose tank circuit.
The Brussels department, with a workers of about 20, is an offshoot of a privately funded academic basis primarily based in Budapest, which was granted €1.4 billion by the Hungarian state through the COVID pandemic — simply as Budapest was tightening the screws on different educational organizations within the nation, together with the George Soros-backed Central European College.
To imbue the subsequent era of Hungarian luminaries with conservative values, the group offers youngsters, usually from poor backgrounds, scholarships to attend facilities throughout Hungary, the place they partake in extra-curricular actions and training.
“There’s a probability that they’re going to be among the many subsequent era leaders of Hungary, not simply within the political realm, however within the spheres of tradition, economic system, enterprise,” stated Balázs Orbán, a prime adviser (however no relation) to the Hungarian prime minister and the driving power behind MCC.
At a latest MCC occasion in Brussels, younger staffers from the European Parliament mingled with representatives from EU nations, as they heard from numerous right-wing audio system on the rise of populism.
The intention of the affiliation, director Frank Furedi instructed attendees, was to supply folks with the “mental sources” to counter a dominant tradition that desires to “shove gender politics down our throat” and “destroy our previous.”