Hungary halts media funding in Transylvania
With Hungary in the midst of an economic crisis, the government in Budapest has announced that it will no longer finance Hungarian-language media in Romania. Journalists report that between 2017 and 2019 alone, it paid 10.5 million euros to the Erdélyi Médiatér association which used the funds to buy up relevant outlets in Transylvania. Media in Hungary and Romania discuss what the withdrawal will mean.
Propaganda machine lacks drive
Deutsche Welle's Romanian Service is not at all surprised by the Hungarian government's withdrawal:
“The media conglomerate that was created to win the votes and hearts of Hungarian-speaking Transylvanians was politically successful but could not be economically viable. It's almost impossible to establish a propaganda machine that generates enough money to support itself. Viktor Orbán was striving for a utopian model and now seems to have been forced to abandon or at least restrict it.”
Warning signal for Hungarian minority
it's not just Transylvania's Hungarian-language press that is dependent on the Orbán government, writes Népszava, alarmed:
“Could the closure of these newspapers be a warning signal for many other Transylvanian cultural, church and sports institutions that have become completely dependent on Hungarian subsidies? ... Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania was founded by the first Orbán government, and currently more than 2,000 students study there in several cities. Although a lot has been invested in the infrastructure, the university has never been integrated into the Romanian higher education system and is completely dependent on the Hungarian state budget.”