EU starts legal action amid tension over Ignatieff’s university
BRUSSELS — Hungary’s prime minister Wednesday dismissed concerns about his country’s new higher education law after the European Union launched legal action amid fears the law is aimed at shutting down a university run by a former Canadian political leader.
Central European University was founded by billionaire George Soros and its president is Michael Ignatieff, a former leader of Canada’s Liberal party.
The prime minister, Viktor Orban, insisted Hungary remains committed to the European project.
But he also launched a stinging attack on Soros, branding him “an open enemy of the euro” single currency who wants to open Europe’s floodgates to a million migrants a year.
European Commission vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis said the EU’s executive arm has sent a “letter of formal notice” to Orban’s government — a first step in legal action — over the education law approved earlier this month.
The commission believes it could infringe on European rights to provide services, but also rights regarding academic freedom and the right to an education.
The Hungarian government has one month to respond.
Ignatieff says his campus in Budapest “has a gun pointed to its head” and might not be able to accept new students after Jan. 1.
But speaking to EU lawmakers in Brussels, Orban said the law is only a “minor amendment,” and applies to 28 universities, with the aim of introducing uniform rules, closing loopholes, introducing transparency and ending privileges.
Orban has said the university is “cheating” because it issues diplomas accepted both in the U.S. and in Hungary, where it has been operating since 1993.
The university is accredited in New York state but has no campus there. Orban says this gives it an unfair advantage over other Hungarian universities, but has denied he wants to shut it down.
In a statement from Budapest, the university welcomed the legal action as confirmation of its belief that the law “is discriminatory and runs counter to European values.”
Ignatieff said he hopes the move “will lead the Hungarian government toward rapid negotiations so that we can resolve this matter.”
European Commission first vice-president Frans Timmermans described the university as a “pearl in the crown of post-divided Europe, of a Europe free and whole.”
“The only thing the Central European University is asking is to be left alone, to do what it does well,” he said.
He also criticized a new asylum law in Hungary, saying it too “raises serious doubts about compatibility with EU law” and vowing “the commission will not hesitate to take further action” if necessary.
Orban, meanwhile, said Soros and nongovernmental organizations he funds “want to let one million migrants into the European Union every year. This is his publicly-declared program and he offers financial loans to back this up.”
Indeed, the university dispute is part of a wider Hungarian government campaign against Soros.
Orban claims Soros is undermining Hungarian interests because of his support for migrants.
Tens of thousands of people have crossed into and through Hungary. Orban, determined to stop more from coming, has built razor-wire border fences.
Liberal group leader Guy Verhofstadt accused Orban of harassing NGOs, trying to muzzle the media and now looking to close a university, and said to the Hungarian leader: “How far will you go? What is the next thing, burning books?”