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Has the CEU left now or are you staying here?
The building was not removed, but its graduate training was. Vienna has been the home of the university since September 2019, and the full-time first degree already began their studies in Austria this fall.
What was left here then?
It continues to conduct research on its Budapest campus. The CEU Institute for Democracy and the Research Center for Media, Data and Social Research, which will continue to function as part of it, will bring together research activities in Hungary.
But are there students at the university here?
Still, the university has 615 master’s and doctoral students who will complete their studies on the Budapest campus in 2021.
Why did you have to go to college then?
At the initiative of the Orbán government, the Hungarian Higher Education Law was amended in 2017. The amendment introduced four new conditions for foreign universities operating in Hungary. Universities that also offer a degree abroad must also be based abroad, where they have students, and also conduct real educational activities. The operation of the university must also be agreed by the two states in the framework of an international treaty. They must also offer training leading to a recognized Hungarian higher education degree and diploma. Furthermore, the Hungarian Education Office must authorize its operation in Hungary.
What is wrong with that?
Basically nothing. The government said it wanted to unify the national functioning of foreign universities because there were several fake universities in Hungary that raised a lot of money from their students and promised them a foreign degree in exchange. This may seem attractive at first, but these institutions generally had a low level of education and the degree they obtained was useless.
Was CEU such a fake university?
No, at CEU there was an internationally recognized high quality education in Budapest, attended by students and teachers from all over the world. The problem was probably more than that the university was founded almost 30 years ago by György Soros, with whom the government has serious debates about the worldview. The university has been a victim of this. CEU has announced that it is educating its students about critical thinking, the idea of an open society.
But did it meet the conditions set by the government?
CEU has not conducted any educational activities in the United States before. However, a few months after the law was passed, he made an agreement with Bard College in New York that allowed CEU to also teach on the US campus.The draft agreement between New York State and Hungary was completed, but the Hungarian side did not sign it. So the CEU tried to fulfill the conditions set out in the Hungarian Higher Education Law, but that was not enough for the Hungarian government.
And didn’t they try to fight to stay here?
But protesting the decision, they also used political means, but due to uncertainty, it was announced in December 2018 that they would rather leave Hungary and move to Vienna. Meanwhile, the European Commission has started infringement proceedings against Hungary, which ultimately ended in the Court of Justice of the European Union, where the 2017 amendment to Hungary’s Higher Education Law, or more commonly known as lex CEU. According to the Court of Justice of the European Union, it is not right to impose conditions on foreign universities that violate EU law by failing to accord equal treatment to national and foreign higher education institutions.
The 2017 amendment to the Higher Education Act is incompatible with EU law.
(Cover image: Koszticsák Szilárd / MTI.)
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