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Brussels should end the exclusion of 21 Hungarian universities from the Erasmus and Horizon programs, the Ministry of Culture and Innovation said in a statement. The ministry will submit a bill to amend the regulation on the functioning of the boards of trustees of model-changing universities in order to “finally end discrimination against students and researchers of model-changing universities excluded from Erasmus and Horizon.”
According to the ministry, Brussels is using the exclusion of Hungarian students and researchers from EU programs to exert political pressure. “Despite the government’s openness and initiatives, Brussels has been unwilling to take action in this matter for almost a year;
therefore, the ministry will publish a bill for public consultation and then submit it to parliament, on the basis of which Brussels should end the exclusion of 21 Hungarian universities from the Erasmus and Horizon programs,”
the statement reads.
The ministry also recalled that the bill to be published for public consultation is identical to the proposal on which the government has been waiting 10 months for a response from Brussels. The ministry stressed that the Hungarian government was working continuously to remedy the “unfair and unjust” situation. “We have had several discussions with Brussels in the past, but no progress has been made,” they added, noting that the National Youth Council of Hungary (NIT) has also called on the European Commission to stop delaying its response.
The ministry said that the bill, sent to the European Commission last November, will be submitted to parliament in the autumn session.
“The bill aims to settle all the issues – fixed-term board membership, conflict of interest, cooling-off period – that the Commission found worrying, but the proposals that Brussels wanted to enforce by excluding Hungarian rectors and professors from the board of trustees and by nominating foreign NGOs as trustees will not be accepted,” they said.
Veronika Varga-Bajusz, State Secretary for Higher Education, Vocational and Adult Education and Youth, was quoted as saying that participation in the Erasmus and Horizon programs is a fundamental right of Hungarian students as EU citizens.
Last year in January, the EC announced that Hungarian universities that operate as public trust foundations or are maintained by such foundations will no longer receive grants from the EU-funded Erasmus+ exchange and Horizon Europe research and innovation programs. The universities were targeted by the EU because “their operating model did not ensure the transparent management of EU funds, as neither public procurement nor conflict of interest rules applied to them.” Another problem cited was that in many universities, government politicians were on the board of trustees. Since then, the politicians concerned have resigned from their positions on the boards, but the dispute with the EC has not been resolved.
Via MTI, Featured image: Pixabay