Hungarian Minority Party Will Not Vote Money Laundering Bill If Anti-NGO Provisions Stand

The UDMR MP stated that the project would be unfeasible, as it might lead to the necessity of registering millions of people, and it would affects tens of thousands of NGOs.

“If an NGO gives some poor people a sum of money, or a blanket, they must report it. That means hundreds of thousands of people, and their names must be noted in a registry. We might need to register millions of people, we do not know yet. We cannot vote such a bill,” Arpad said during debates in the Lower Chamber on the bill.

Liberal MP Ioan Cupsa also announced that his party wouldn’t support the bill, due to the same reasons.

The bill stipulates that NGOs must report all of their real beneficiaries, meaning any people or group of people in the interest of who they were founded.

It seeks to transpose an EU directive on fighting money laundering and terrorism financing. The Lower Chamber is due to vote on the project Wednesday.