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The governments of the European Union can no longer turn a blind eye to the violation of the rule of law in Hungary, they must act after the judicial decision to restore the rights of the CEU, wrote the rector of the Central European University in his opinion article.
Photo: Napi.hu / Péter Szász
The decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union, according to which the amendment of the Education Law in Hungary, according to which the Central European University (CEU) had to move from Budapest to Vienna, violated many international laws, came late, but it may set a precedent for other governments in the EU. do not bend in similar rudeness. Furthermore, EU governments can no longer do so without clarifying how Hungarian leaders view the rule of law. The moment of truth has come for them, writes Michael Ignatieff, president and rector of the CEU, in an opinion piece published in the Financial Times.
EU leaders must make clear when deciding on the EU’s € 1.7 trillion budget for the next period that the Hungarian government must return to the European path of the rule of law. Otherwise, you can forgo European funding. If European governments fail to do so, the principle of the rule of law, as part of the European identity, will suffer irreparable damage, and authoritarian regimes of power could spread unstoppably in the eastern part of the Union.
According to the rector of the CEU, he warns of this danger that since 2017, when the CEU was forced to withdraw, the Hungarian government has taken another similar violent action. The reason for this, he said, is that the EU and the United States (the institution is accredited in the United States and also offers valid degrees there) have turned a blind eye to the infringement against the CEU. A year later, the Hungarian leadership abolished the independence of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and deprived the institution of its research institutes, and then, in 2019, began to privatize higher education by placing pro-government party soldiers in the new organs of government. Meanwhile, 80 percent of the Hungarian media is controlled by the government or by businessmen close to the government.
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