More than half a billion forints of public money spent on Orbán’s Jerusalem mysterious project

Under the new Hungarian government, details are finally starting to emerge about Viktor Orbán’s mysterious Jerusalem project, which consumed more than half a billion forints of public money with almost no visible activity.

In late June EUalive’s partner Átlátszó reported that the Orbán government, just six months before the elections, almost unnoticed, established a mysterious institution in Jerusalem. The outgoing prime minister’s plan may have been that his first foreign trip after an election victory would lead here, to ceremonially inaugurate the Jerusalem Hungarian Academy.

Questions surrounding Hungary’s mysterious “Jerusalem academy” remain unanswered

The government decision now released in response to our partner’s Átlátszó public data request reveals that the previous government spent more than half a billion forints (EUR 1.4M) of public money on launching the institution, and had budgeted nearly 200 million forints annually for its operation.

The establishment of the Jerusalem Hungarian Academy as a “spiritual bastion” led by archeologist Győző Vörös was recorded in Government Decision No. 2073/2025, which also details the creation and financing of the institution.

According to the document, the Jerusalem Hungarian Academy operates under the umbrella of the Hungarian Embassy in Tel Aviv. The then Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Péter Szijjártó, and the Minister of Culture and Innovation, Balázs Hankó, were tasked with taking the necessary diplomatic steps and measures for the opening – including construction, IT, and security investments for the building. The background to the initiative is that in 2019, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Szijjártó jointly inaugurated the Hungarian foreign trade representation in Jerusalem.

For the academy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade allocated nearly 537 million forints, and the Ministry of Culture and Innovation an additional 28 million forints in extra funding last year. The document also stipulates that from 2026 onwards, at least 191 million forints should be available annually for its financing.

The government decision now released still fails to answer several questions we raised in Átlátszó’s previous article: it remains unknown how many employees work at the institution, under what legal arrangement the Jerusalem property is used, exactly what the allocated funds were spent on, and from which budget the academy is currently operating.

Hungarian miracle in Jerusalem

According to Átlátszó’s sources, Viktor Orbán’s plan may have been that after an election victory, his first foreign trip would lead to Jerusalem, where the academy would be ceremonially inaugurated. Information we received suggests that the institution’s annual budget could even have exceeded that of the entire Hungarian Embassy in Tel Aviv.

The academy operates in the prestigious Talbiyeh neighbourhood, at 6 George Washington Street, right next to the YMCA building. The first photographs of the institution were not published by the Hungarian but by the Israeli press – The Times of Israel described it as an “embassy branch”.

The Jerusalem Hungarian Academy’s website is practically empty, and according to the programme calendar, not a single event has been held there since its opening – even though it has already published its own scientific journal. Its Facebook page was only created months after the opening, just days before the April elections.

Israeli media had previously referred to the institution in several articles as a “diplomatic mission” and “foreign mission”, which may indicate that the Jerusalem Hungarian Academy was intended to play not only a cultural but also a foreign policy role.

Only a small number of countries currently maintain embassies in Jerusalem: the United States, Kosovo, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay, and Papua New Guinea. Under its new government, Slovenia is set to become the first EU country to move its embassy to Jerusalem.

The EU’s lack of support for moving embassies to Jerusalem stems from its long-standing, unified position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the status of Jerusalem. The EU regards East Jerusalem as occupied Palestinian territory under international law (based on 1967 borders). It views the entire city as a final-status issue that must be resolved through direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, not unilateral actions.

The official EU position is that Jerusalem should serve as the shared capital of both a future Israeli and Palestinian state in a two-state solution. Moving an embassy to (undivided) Jerusalem is seen as prejudging the outcome and violating the spirit of the Oslo Accords and relevant UN Security Council resolutions (particularly 242 and 478, which declared Israel’s 1980 annexation of East Jerusalem “null and void”).

The article in Hungarian by EUalive’s partner Átlátszó can be found here.

Caption: An undated photo of Viktor Orbán’s mysterious Jerusalem academy.