# CPAC Hungary The Budapest editions of the [[Conservative Political Action Conference]], held **five times between 2022 and 2026** — the first time the American conservative movement's flagship gathering was staged as a recurring event in a foreign capital, and, as emerged after the Hungarian government fell, an event that government was paying for. ## What it was The first Budapest edition opened in **May 2022**, weeks after [[Viktor Orbán]]'s fourth consecutive election win, with Orbán delivering the keynote. It became an annual fixture and the physical meeting point of the network filed at [[Global New Right Network]] and [[International Far-Right Networks]]: European nationalist party leaders, American movement conservatives, [[Danube Institute]] and [[Mathias Corvinus Collegium]] fellows, and a rotating cast of American media figures. The final edition under Fidesz was held on **21 March 2026**, three weeks before the election, under the slogan **"No migration! No gender! No war!"** Two weeks after that, on **7 April 2026**, US Vice President [[JD Vance]] flew to Budapest to campaign for Orbán and spoke at the Mathias Corvinus Collegium. Orbán lost on 12 April. ## The funding disclosure After the defeat, the incoming government of [[Péter Magyar]] disclosed that the Hungarian state had been financing the conferences. Magyar's position, stated publicly in April 2026: - the state "should never have financed them in the first place, it was a crime"; - mixing party financing with state budget spending is a criminal offence and would be referred to the authorities; - state funding for CPAC and comparable foreign right-wing institutions would end; - CPAC itself remained "very welcome" in Budapest, at its own expense. CPAC chairman [[Matt Schlapp]] said he was "very gratified" by the invitation and would take him up on it. > [!important] ⭐ The finding: what presented as a movement was partly a procurement > The Budapest conferences were read, for four years, as evidence that American conservatives had independently discovered a European governance model they admired. **A foreign government was paying for the venue at which that discovery was performed** — and this became knowable only because that government lost an election and its successor opened the books. > > The qualification matters as much as the finding. The *transfer* was real: the techniques catalogued at [[Fundamental Law of Hungary]], the vocabulary of [[Illiberal Democracy]], the [[Heritage Foundation]] study delegations, the arguments that surface translated in [[Project 2025]]. Subsidy does not make an idea false or an enthusiasm insincere. **What the disclosure destroys is the claim that the enthusiasm was spontaneous** — which was the specific claim the conferences existed to demonstrate. ## See Also - [[Conservative Political Action Conference]] · [[American Conservative Union]] - [[Hungary]] · [[Hungarian History Hub]] · [[Viktor Orbán]] · [[Péter Magyar]] · [[Fidesz]] · [[Tisza Party]] - [[Danube Institute]] · [[Mathias Corvinus Collegium]] · [[Edmund Burke Foundation]] · [[National Conservatism]] - [[Global New Right Network]] · [[International Far-Right Networks]] - [[JD Vance]] · [[Tucker Carlson]] · [[Steve Bannon]] · [[Rod Dreher]]