BUDAPEST, Hungary — The rector of a university founded by financier and philanthropist George Soros on Tuesday urged Hungary to sign an agreement with New York state guaranteeing the school’s continued operations in Budapest.
Central European University rector Michael Ignatieff said the institution had fully complied with changes to Hungary’s law on higher education but was being held in “legal limbo” by the government’s inaction.
“It’s as if we’re being slowly strangled,” Ignatieff said. “A solution is on the table, but every time we get within reach of a solution, the goalposts get moved.
“A university that is deliberately kept by the government in a state of legal uncertainty to suit their political convenience, is a university that is in danger,” he added.
The European Union and Hungarian courts have challenged Hungary’s new education rules, which critics say were arbitrary and passed mainly as a means to force CEU out of Hungary.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban considers Soros a key ideological foe and the government is in the midst of a renewed campaign against Soros’ support for immigration. For months, the government said that the CEU issue was purely educational and it was merely seeking to level the playing field between foreign and domestic universities in Hungary.
But in July, Janos Lazar, Orban’s chief of staff, acknowledged that Soros’ advocacy for migration changed the relationship between CEU and the government.
