It would be justified to initiate rule of law proceedings against Brussels because the European Commission is excluding Hungarian university students and researchers from the Erasmus+ and Horizon programs “without legal basis, out of political revenge,” said Balázs Hankó, Minister for Innovation and Culture, in a press statement following the Council of Europe’s conference on academic freedom in Strasbourg.
According to the minister, the greatest violation of academic freedom today is that 240,000 Hungarian and non-Hungarian university students and researchers do not have access to Erasmus and Horizon program funding.
In his presentation, he made it clear that the European Commission “had no right to exclude university students and researchers from Erasmus and Horizon because higher education and education are national competences.”
As he said,
autonomy is when university senates decide how they want to organize the future of universities. This is what happened in Hungary in the case of 21 universities. Eighty-seven percent of senate members supported the change.”
The minister stated: “Brussels, motivated by political considerations, is taking political revenge on university students and researchers with the help of its Hungarian allies, such as TISZA and the Democratic Coalition, as well as informers who have remained here since the communist era.”
Balázs Hankó said: “This has no legal basis or justification. The operation of universities is a national competence. In other words, Brussels is committing the greatest violation of autonomy. We are familiar with this communist tactic of accusing others of what they themselves are doing. In the name of autonomy, they are taking away the autonomy of Hungarian universities and questioning the decisions of Hungarian university senates.”
According to the minister, the European Commission did not consult with the leaders of Hungarian universities, while “listening to all kinds of informants” and making all its decisions without prior impact assessment.
Hungarian universities. Photo: Facebook/Corvinus University
In his presentation, he also listed international examples, pointing out that in Hungary, only 13 of the 105 university board members were politicians—who have since resigned—while in Austria, for example, every second member of the governing councils is appointed by the government. He emphasized that in Hungary, the rector is nominated by the senate, while in Sweden, “the rector is appointed by a body designated by the government.”
He stressed that in several European countries, the budget is determined jointly by the maintaining body and the universities, and there are no detailed rules for private universities anywhere in Europe. According to the minister, the assessment that Hungarian universities performed poorly on the academic autonomy ranking index is untrue, as “the survey was not conducted at Hungarian universities.”
Lies, political motivation: this is what Hungarian university students and Hungarian universities are facing,”
he said. He added that he had asked the Council of Europe to include in the first point of the report “a call to the European Commission to give back what is rightfully theirs to Hungarian university students and researchers, to give back Erasmus, to give back Horizon.”
“Today, it is the European Commission, today it is Brussels, that is trampling on academic freedom the most. We must fight for the fundamental rights of Hungarian university students and researchers,” he added.
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Via MTI; Featured photo: Pixabay
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