Prospect of partial return to Budapest by Central European University suggests confidence in Hungary’s future
A university that Viktor Orbán tried to chase out of Hungary is open to expanding its presence in Budapest, in a mark of confidence in the country’s democratic future.
Carsten Q Schneider, the interim president and rector of Central European University (CEU), said it was interested in increasing its programmes in Budapest, as long as this did not damage the student experience.
So far the CEU has not held formal talks with Hungary’s new government, which has promised to restore academic freedom, “but our hand is reaching out, their hand is reaching out – it is just that they have many things to do”, the academic told the Guardian.
The CEU relocated its main activities to Vienna from Budapest in 2019, after pressure from the previous government led by Orbán. But the outlook changed when Péter Magyar won a landslide victory in April pledging to root out corruption and reform the state.
The CEU, founded by Hungarian-American financier and philanthropist George Soros in 1991 to entrench democratic change in the region, was forced to cease awarding degrees in Budapest in response to a law widely seen as targeting the institution.
The EU’s highest court struck down Hungary’s “Lex CEU”
