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In all respects, the Court of Justice of the European Union confirmed the objections of the European Commission in the infamous amendment to the Hungarian Higher Education Law in 2017, in the infringement procedure initiated against the lex CEU, according to the ruling published by the Luxembourg-based body on Tuesday.
The conditions introduced by Hungary, which allow foreign higher education institutions to carry out their activities in Hungary, are incompatible with EU law.
– write the communication sent to the index.
The amendment to the law, unofficially named after the Central European University (CEU) founded by György Soros, declared that a foreign higher education institution outside the European Economic Area (EEA) can only carry out educational activities in Hungary if it also carries studies in your home country. his home country has contracts with the Orbán government (the EEA then included 28 EU member states, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway).
However, the Commission argues that it is a condition of the contract between the continent and the Orbán government.
it violates the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which was also signed by the European Union under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The condition of continental education conflicts with two directives in addition to the WTO agreement,
it also infringes the principles of freedom of establishment and freedom to provide services in the internal market.
But according to the Court of Justice of the European Communities, the two conditions
Nor is it in line with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the freedom of scientific life, the right to establish an educational establishment or the principle of freedom of enterprise.
In the last paragraph of the judgment, the Court of Justice of the European Communities affirms that the amendment of the 2017 law is appropriate to
endanger the scientific activities of the relevant foreign higher education institutions on the territory of Hungary and that, therefore, It deprives interested universities of the autonomous infrastructure necessary to carry out their scientific and educational research activities. Therefore, these measures restrict the freedom of scientific life protected by article 13 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU.
Following the court ruling, a dispute will begin between the European Commission and Hungary over whether the Orbán government is willing to allow the matter and change the law so that it does not violate EU law. If the Orbán government refrains from doing so (and it is hard enough to imagine letting it go, as it would be a huge loss of face), the European Commission could go back to the Court of Justice of the European Union.
The CEU’s home country is the United States, where education is a federal state. The condition that he continue training in his home country was met by the CEU in cooperation with Bard College in New York, but the Orbán government refused to sign the agreement. For this reason, CEU had to move its US-accredited training courses from Budapest to Vienna, which accounts for around 80 percent of all training.
The lex CEU was presented by Zoltán Balog, former Minister of Human Resources, on April 1, 2017. At the proposal of Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén, the two-thirds majority of Fidesz in the National Assembly approved it in an exceptional procedure four days later. For this reason, the European Commission launched an infringement procedure that month.
You can read more about the background to all this in our article.
(Cover image: Building of the Court of Justice of the European Communities in Luxembourg. Photo: Picture Alliance / Getty Images Hungary)
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