(ANSA) - BELGRADE, 15 MAG - The Open Society Foundations (OSF), founded and backed by billionaire George Soros, are set to close their office in Budapest and moving their Budapest-based international operations and staff to Berlin, OSF said in a statement today.

OSF noted that the decision is due to the "increasingly repressive political and legal environment in Hungary" and recalled that "the Hungarian government prepares to impose further restrictions on nongovernmental organizations through what it has branded its 'Stop Soros' package of legislation." OSF president Patrick Gaspard said that "the government of Hungary has denigrated and misrepresented our work and repressed civil society for the sake of political gain, using tactics unprecedented in the history of the European Union." The OSF has been working in Hungary since 1984, when the founder, the American tycoon of Hungarian origin, George Soros, set up the Hungarian Soros Foundation in the country. Currently, the OSF office in Budapest employs more than 100 people.

OSF, which operates in more than 100 countries supporting democracy and civil societies worldwide, said that it will continue "to support the important work of civil society groups in Hungary on issues such as arts and culture, media freedom, transparency, and education and health care." (ANSA).