The fact that Viktor Orbán's propaganda is present in Brussels is well-known in the informed circles of the ‘Eurobubble’. Less well known, however, is how exactly it is present and what it does. Its most visible manifestation is the so-called Mathias Corvinus Collegium, generously funded by the Orbán regime.
‘True’ feminism and ‘true’ LGBT against EU gender policies
“When you play with all these different identities, you make an effort to transform, right? So, you transform the mandates of policymakers who want to be visible around a new identity and a new vulnerability. That's good for organizations because they can't... well, you know, they're vulnerable to this kind of argument, they've become a thing of the past now – haven't women already achieved all the rights we're talking about? And organizations say – well, no, because there's this and that, so they're constantly expanding their scope. And, you know, sociologists have described this for decades, that there's this tendency to have this kind of mission creep, where you're focused on one thing first, and then that thing expands, because you're always vulnerable to this idea that you've kind of reached a niche, right?”
Slightly maddening, the above quote is, even if it does not seem so, an example of such propaganda. It belongs to a sociologist named Ashley Frawley, who presents herself as a lecturer at the British University of Swansea and a visiting researcher at Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) and who, according to, Google Scholar is interested in happiness, mental health, social issues (sic) and two untranslatable buzzwords, but which no longer need translation thanks to the concerted efforts of millions of semi-literate gurus or charlatans: ‘well-being’ and ‘mindfulness’. That being the author, what is the connection between the above quote and reality or, however we want to look at it, propaganda?
The quote becomes somewhat clearer when we learn that it was uttered at an event organized by Mathias Corvinus Collegium Brussels on 17 March, entitled: ‘Does gender self-identification threaten women's rights and children's safety?’ Let's translate further, from English to English: gender self-identification refers to how a person can consider themselves – male, female, gay, lesbian, transsexual, and so on. But what is the European Union's problem with gender self-identification? Well, the European Commission has adopted an official document that encourages it. But what do you do when ‘critics’ of self-identification (unnamed by MCC) argue that it leads to the loss of sex-based rights (of women, for example), threats to protection policies and restrictions on free speech? And here we are faced with the familiar consequences: gender-neutral toilets and biologically male athletes participating in women's competitions, which are very dangerous things in the opinion of the ‘critics’. In other words, gender self-identification, the ideal of the contemporary LGBTQ movement, threatens, if not feminism, at least women and their children. Faika El-Nagashi, former (for lack of anything better) member of the Austrian Parliament, feminist and openly lesbian, a participant in the same event, puts it clearly: "The definitions have changed, however. LGBTQI no longer means lesbian or gay today. On the contrary, it conflicts with these notions. However, there are generously funded organizations that use the legacy of the lesbian and gay movements and set the agenda, which politicians follow without protest."
Nonsense or insidious propaganda?
But why should we make readers rack their brains over all these ideological subtleties, especially since we do not believe them to be directly harmed by a man participating in a women's competition, nor victims of abuse in unisex toilets? This seemingly marginal issue is turned into propaganda by several factors:
The presence of three female guests (the two speakers were joined by a third, psychotherapist Stella O'Malley, who has worked with transgender children and believes that ‘trans’ identity is temporary);
The academic and activist credentials of the participants (sometimes real, as Swansea University is a well-regarded institution in the United Kingdom);
Criticism of progressive EU policies from positions that are themselves apparently, or at least in part, progressive;
Venue: Brussels Press Club, well known to journalists (probably rented; announced at the last minute);
A discourse with rational and sophisticated elements. However convoluted it may be, Ashley Frowley's idea that civic organizations can redefine themselves, due to the transformation of the public agenda or simply out of opportunism, is valid.
In one way or another, a ‘non-majority’ topic was moved to the heart of the European Quarter, at 95 Rue Froissart, some 300 meters from the great enemy, the European Commission's Berlaymont building, and the European Union was fought with its own weapons: progressive ideologies, the academic identities of the actors and bewildering jargon. As for the direct, specific impact of such an event, not even the organizers – or Viktor Orbán himself, if he knew about it – could harbor many illusions. The Press Club hall was packed, but not with typical representatives of the ‘Eurobubble’. Rather, it was the kind of slightly agitated audience usually gathered by events on the (ideological) fringe.
However, a simple glance at the list of events organized by MCC Brussels suggests the cumulative effect that such regular initiatives could have. A few examples: ‘Has Europe lost its sense of beauty?’, ‘The EU's censorship agenda’; ‘The rule of law in Poland [Tusk's Poland – ed.]: double standards and abuses?’; "Chained creativity: the diversity agenda‘; ’Why can't the cordon sanitaire [the centrist coalition that keeps the far right out of government – ed.] hold?‘; ’What patriotic populism can offer democracy" and so on. MCC Brussels events are held weekly, with some interruptions.
Mathias Corvinus Collegium, Viktor Orbán's ‘Ștefan Gheorghiu’ Academy
But, ultimately, is there a direct link between all this and the autocrat in Budapest? In ‘The Genius of Pannonia’, a pertinent analysis of the Orbán era also published in Romanian, Stefano Bottoni explains: "The special role of cultural technologists is worth mentioning here. In this regard, an emblematic entity [...] is Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), founded in 1996 with the aim of stimulating talent. Over the years, MCC has played an increasingly important role in shaping the intellectual hinterland of Fidesz and in training young foreign language speakers who are highly cultured in debating and well-informed about the world. [...] MCC is not just a showcase institution. Numerous researchers and specialists recognized in scientific management are involved in program planning and organization management. They see the cultural foundation of an experiment in power techniques as both a practical and an intellectual task. The issue here is not the scientific level of the professors who teach the MCC courses. Rather, it is how the young people trained at MCC will react to the system that has shaped them since adolescence.”
Administratively speaking, MCC is a private university. However, the extent to which it is private can be seen from the substantial funding it has received since 2020. This year, MCC received 10% of the shares in MOL and Gideon Richter Hungary, worth 1.3 billion USD, through a law passed by the Hungarian Parliament dominated by Orbán's FIDESZ, plus 462 USD million in cash funding and a public domain worth another 9 million.
Of course, not all of this money is spent in Brussels. In 2023, Mathias Corvinus Collegium had a total of nearly 7,000 students, and a budget of 88 million USD. It offered scholarships and training internships, often short-term (up to one year) for various academic levels, on very practical topics, from debates to Roma talent, parenting academy and the like.
Beyond its nominal status as a university, MCC closely resembles a partisan think tank, pro-FIDESZ and pro-Orbán, with an ‘educational’ component very similar to the ‘party school’ of the communist activists of yesteryear, ‘Ștefan Gheorghiu’ Academy, which was focused on indoctrinating and transforming students into ideological peddlers rather than education itself. Stefano Bottoni's suggestion mentioned above is confirmed by a former MCC scholarship holder, who claims that in exchange for the generous facilities offered, he was expected to be loyal to the Orbán regime and to publicly express this loyalty, concluding: “[MCC] is a tool of far-right propaganda and could soon be coming to your city”, referring to its presumed launch in London in 2023. In 2022, at the inauguration of MCC Brussels, a Hungarian opposition MEP also stated that its appearance in the center of the ‘Eurobubble’ is linked to “the strategic campaign that FIDESZ has been waging for a long time, aimed at creating an anti-EU, far-right power center in Brussels”. If that is not enough, the MCC itself, on its ‘About Us’ page, admits that it is ‘independent, but not ideologically neutral’.
However, when it comes to the relation to power, the New York Times considers the college's structure to be ‘incestuous’, rather than independent.
Orbán's propaganda reaches the US
The above sketch suggests an opulent, ideological institution that attracts young people with fewer opportunities through generous facilities. It is not just that – nor is it the fact that it is difficult to assume what essential political affinities could attract ‘public intellectuals’ (or less public ones) such as the participants in the event described. Nor is it the few more “resounding” conferences that benefited from the presence of leaders of the ‘alternative’ democracy such as Tucker Carlson or Nigel Farage. MCC organizes the so-called Budapest Fellowship Program ‘in Hungary, which explicitly aims to “build transatlantic bridges between the United States and Hungary”, with the expectation that “fellows will gain a thorough understanding of Hungarian history, politics and society, which they can take back with them to the US”. In which, of course, ‘ideological neutrality’ does not matter. If this does not look like the export of ideology to Trump's homeland, it is hard to believe what else it could be.
I reviewed the (more or less) academic CVs of several scholarship recipients and found the same mix of real and fanciful credentials. A certain Kelli Buzzard, a Republican activist from Arizona and recipient of the Budapest Fellowship in 2022, converted to Catholicism and was baptized in the same year, with or without any connection to the teachings of the ‘technologists’ at MCC. A certain Charles Yockey used the program as a stepping stone to studies announced at Tsinghua University in, of course, Beijing. An element of credibility in his biography is his membership of Chatham House, the famous British think tank. It looks good on a CV, but not to those in the know, because it is easy to find out that ‘membership’ can be obtained through an annual subscription (between 180 and 330 pounds). In contrast, a gentleman named Daniel Whitehead has a much more consistent public profile, as a former advisor to Ron de Santis and a member of the Claremont Institute, a Republican think tank that has been called by the New York Times ‘the nerve center of the American right.’
The idea of exporting Orbánist ideology to the US is clearly demonstrated by a contingent of several dozen such figures, some more marginal, some more important in the mechanisms of politics across the Atlantic.
MCC plays away and wins. In the European Parliament
At least one MCC Brussels event this spring saw the organizers publicly accuse the authorities of censorship, as they were no longer welcome at their planned venue and had to find a new one. It seems that MCC Brussels solved this problem not only fast, but also triumphantly, because on 11 June, it announced an event called ‘The Digital Services Act, NGOs and the EU propaganda machine’. While the name resembles others like that, what is interesting is the location: Room Antall 6Q2 of the European Parliament, Brussels headquarters. Nominally, the invitation lists the extremist MEP Virginie Joron (Rassemblement National/PfE) as an organizer, but the event is listed on the MCC Brussels website, and speakers include Norman Lewis, a guest researcher at MCC, Nikola Bartulica from DOMiNO/ECR, and Tom Vandendriessche (Vlaams Belang, PfE).
‘Patriots for Europe’ (PfE or Patriots.eu) has been described as Viktor Orbán's ‘ragtag’ group, created ad hoc after the 2024 European Parliament elections. Rassemblement National is the most influential party in the group, and the political achievements of Virginie Joron, the ‘organizer’, include a meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, the ‘observer’ status at the 2021 referendum on Russia's annexation of Crimea, to which legitimate organizations such as the OSCE were not admitted, and anti-vax ideas expressed in various ways on various occasions.
Without going into the details of the event, it is clear that MCC Brussels is spreading anti-EU propaganda within one of the EU's major institutions, ‘at the expense’ of the EU. The very fact that the European Parliament provided the logistics for the meeting (possibly explaining Virginie Joron's role as ‘organizer’) is enough to prove this, even if there is no information about the actual flow of money. In fact, Mathias Corvinus Collegium does not need Brussels’ money, because it has Budapest’s.
Orbán's global expansion and its other nerve centers
From the detailed yet fragmentary picture presented above, two important directions of Orbánist propaganda through the MCC emerge: Brussels and Washington. We have not found any further details regarding the announced launch of a satellite entity in London. However, Mathias Corvinus Collegium is present in 10 other locations around the world. One in Slovakia, another in Ukraine and eight in Romania: Arad, Oradea, Cluj, Târgu Mureș, Odorheiu Secuiesc, Sfântu Gheorghe, Iacobeni, Miecurea Ciuc. Those interested in scholarships or other information can consult the ‘opportunities’ on MCC.ro, even in Romanian.
