According to the office's report, USAID was created as part of the US national security network to exert pressure worldwide.Continue reading
“The Hungarian government will challenge the Brussels bureaucrats’ decision of December 16 last year, which seriously infringes on the autonomy of Hungarian universities, students, and researchers in the Court of Justice of the European Union,” the Minister of Culture and Innovation said in Brussels on Tuesday.
Commenting on the EU Commission’s decision of December 16, that Hungarian law does not adequately address the conflict of interest risks in the boards of trustees of public interest foundations, Balázs Hankó said that
Brussels has attacked our sovereignty, and the Hungarian government will therefore take legal action against the European Commission on Wednesday.”
He explained that the European Commission wants to exclude university rectors from the board of trustees and wants to involve NGOs funded by George Soros and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in the board of trustees and university elections. With this move, and its decision to reject the Hungarian law, the EU Commission has crossed a line in an abuse of power, he said.
“We will not let the European Commission limit the autonomy of our universities, the freedom of our universities. We will not allow it to abuse its power in an arbitrary attempt to interfere in the functioning of universities, rectors, and senates. This is why we are challenging the European Commission’s decision before the Court of Justice of the European Union,” the minister said.
Levente Kovács, Rector of Óbuda University, said that the European Commission is banning Hungarian universities from the Erasmus and Horizon Europe programs on the basis of “fictitious reasons and fictitious grounds.”
While the educational institutions concerned are making this injustice known as widely as possible, six universities, including Óbuda University, have challenged and are suing the EU’s discriminatory policy against universities,”
he recalled.
“We reject the stigmatization. We believe that the truth will come to the surface because none of the accusations listed by the European Union are true,” the Rector said.
After a year of stalled negotiations, at the beginning of December last year, Hungary notified the Commission of the legislative amendments. However, well before the deadline, the Commission announced that the reform presented by the government “is not sufficient to address risks of conflicts of interests” in the boards of the university foundations’ public interest trusts, meaning that the Hungarian model-changing universities are still not able to participate in the EU scholarships.
It is worth noting that the government’s proposal was submitted after the European Commission had refused for about a year to inform the Hungarian side whether the document would address the Commission’s objections. Hungary adopted the new amendment in autumn 2023, introducing key changes: trusteeships are capped at six years, high-ranking government officials are barred from serving on boards during their term, a one-year cooling-off period applies for former officials, and the State Audit Office will oversee conflict-of-interest compliance.
Via MTI, Featured image: Facebook/Budapesti Corvinus Egyetem
