Economy 7 March 2023, 8:23am

Hungarian universities excluded from Erasmus programme appeal to EC President

Portfolio

The rectors of the universities affected by the suspension of Erasmus funding have written a letter to the President of the European Commission, Magyar Nemzet reports.

According to the heads of the 21 Hungarian higher education institutions, it is unprecedented that the European Council's decision, which was promulgated on the basis of a proposal by the European Commission and entered into force immediately, was adopted without the prior consultation of the heads of the universities and the university communities.

The decision excludes 182,000 university students and 18,000 lecturers and researchers from Erasmus+, Horizon Europe and other directly EU-funded programmes.

As they saw no willingness to revise the relevant Council decision at the 15 February 2023 consultation, the damage to the Hungarian academic, teaching and research community is growing more and more serious every day, and as a result they are excluded from more and more research and collaborations, they write.

According to the rectors, the model-changing universities have become more successful and have also made significant progress in the major international rankings, with an 18% increase in the total number of publications indexed in international databases, a 65% increase in the number of foreign students compared to 2013, and a 15% increase in the number of researchers.

The university leaders consider the decision unacceptable and call for its immediate resolution and immediate reparation for the damage to their community's honour and finances.

They also state that the new operating model will not involve any political pressure from the foundations.

Background

It emerged in January that educational institutions in Hungary that operate as asset management foundations or are maintained by such foundations will not be eligible for fresh funding from the Erasmus+ cooperation and educational exchange programme and the Horizon Europe research and innovation framework programme.

The Hungarian government introduced the "change of models" programme for universities in 2019, in which previously state-funded universities were placed under the management of public interest trusts. A series of highly contested and publicized university senate votes followed, and over the course of the next two years 21 universities switched to the public interest trust model.

Orbán’s ruling coalition adopted legislation in April 2021 that transferred state assets worth billions of dollars into foundations to control many of the local universities and cultural institutions.

The decision created 16 ‘new quasi-private foundations’, 11 of which were given control of universities, leaving only five in public domain: Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME), the National University of Public Service (NKE), The Hungarian University of Fine Arts (MKE), and The Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music.

The foundations are run by boards of trustees appointed by the government and led by Orbán’s closest allies, in some cases ministers in his cabinet. Appointed by Fidesz loyalists they have the power to continue reappointing themselves in perpetuity, not to mention that a clause added to the constitution in 2020 had stipulated that the composition of these governing boards may be changed exclusively with a two-thirds majority in parliament.

Not even governments will be able to drag the universities around, they will have a lot greater freedom and autonomy,

Orbán reassured back then.

"They will be their own master a lot more than before, not only in an academic but also in a financial sense.

We don’t want them to become some kind of globalist institutions that lose their national characteristics.

He has also admitted that the appointees would be selected with the ‘right kind of bias’ in mind.

"Logically, when we set up these foundations and appoint the trustees, we’ll invite people […] who own this nationalist approach. I wouldn’t be able to nominate with a clear conscience anyone that has an internationalist, globalist approach because they’d take the universities in that direction too."

While Orbán said in Parliament that the foundations “can only spend the endowment for public good, on education,” opposition leaders decried the new legislation for posing a corruption risk, saying that by the foundations the PM and his allies will continue to push the nationalist, anti-immigrant, anti-gay political message that has steered Hungary away from the European mainstream.

Orbán’s government, promoting what it calls Christian, conservative values, has strongly opposed immigration and limited gay adoption and legal recognition of transgender people.

Freedom House has published its 2022 Nations in Transit Report, classifying Hungary as a transitional or hybrid regime, with its Democracy Score down to 3.68 from 3.71.

It noted that the governing parties continued to syphon public funds from state coffers through the reform of higher education institutions and the establishment of asset-management foundations.