After more than a year and a half of clashes with the Hungarian government, the institute threw in the towel: “We are forced to leave”
The battle between Viktor Orban and George Soros is coming to a conclusion. After more than a year and a half of clashes with the government The Central European University (Ceu), the institute financed by the American millionaire of Hungarian origins leaves Budapest to move to Ausitra, in Vienna. “The CEU was expelled.
An American institution was kicked out of a country that is a NATO ally. A European institution has been ousted from an EU member country”, said Michael Ignatieff, president of the CEU, in a statement published on the university website. The university, accredited in the USA and Hungary, welcomes 1.200 students between master's and PhD in humanities, social sciences, jurisprudence, finance. The university said classes for all U.S.-accredited programs will begin at a new site in Vienna starting in September 2019. However, CEU will maintain its Budapest campus and students who enrolled there will be able to complete their studies.
Students from beyond 100 Villages
CEU attracts students from beyond 100 Villages, offers mainly US-accredited master's programs and has long been opposed by the nationalist Orban who has repeatedly accused Soros of implementing an agenda aimed at encouraging the massive entry of migrants into Europe. Founded by Soros' foundation in 1991 and with a branch in the US state of New York, the CEU has long reported that it was the target of a law approved in April 2017 which placed strict requirements on foreign universities stating that it was written specifically against her.
Criticisms from the EU Parliament
The adoption of the bill, considered by critics to be a serious blow against academic freedom, led the European Parliament to ask for an unprecedented legal action to be launched ex “article 7” against Budapest in September, to suspend his right to vote in the EU Council. CEU says it complied with the law by opening a facility in New York State that U.S. regulators confirmed as an educational shelter business. But a government spokesperson called the site American “a Potemkin campus” which fails to meet the new rules and refused to sign an agreement with US authorities that would have allowed CEU to continue operating.
The rector: “An injustice”
“In the last ones 20 months the CEU has taken all the necessary steps to adapt to Hungarian laws but the government has made it clear that it has no intention” to ensure the long-term operations of the university in Budapest, said Rector Ignatieff, according to which “the government has committed an injustice towards its citizens, hundreds of Hungarians working and studying at CEU, thousands of Hungarian students and their families.”
SOURCE: http://europa.today.it/attualita/soros-orban-vienna.html
Great joy at the expulsion of the branch of globalism !