EU funds 6 November 2023, 3:43pm

EU may circumvent Hungarian universities to free Erasmus funds for students

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One possible way to unblock Erasmus funding for Hungary could be to bypass Hungarian universities and channel the funds to students through intermediaries, Gwendoline Delbos-Cornfield told Politico. According to the author of the latest European Parliament (EP) report, this could be a way to resolve the conflict so that Hungarian students are not left out of EU programmes.

Hungarian universities that have gone through a 'model change' and have been run by foundations since 2021 were barred from EU Erasmus funding because of the rule of law disputes between the Hungarian government and the European Commission. Brussels has been repeatedly criticised in recent months for penalising Hungarian students who are denied access to these funds.

The European Parliament’s Hungary rapporteur Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield, from the French Greens, and John Morijn from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, told Politico's Playbook that the EU should release funds for Hungarian universities and research. “There is one area where the EU could send a signal of support to ordinary Hungarians … the EU should restore academic research and Erasmus funds,” Delbos-Corfield and Morijn told Playbook via mail.

While they conceded that “there is no genuine progress on issues that led to the suspension — including anti-corruption, effective prosecution, judicial independence, and isolating state assets in privatised entities,” they argued that releasing Erasmus and research funds would avoid allowing EU money “to fall into the hands of a corrupt regime.”

One way is to put these funds under the Commission’s direct management without the involvement of captured educational structures, or channel them through a new independent intermediary in Hungary to which scholars and students would have direct access,

Delbos-Corfield and Morijn proposed.

Alternatively, an independent intermediary outside Hungary could channel these funds to research institutions in other Member States while earmarking them specifically for Hungarian scholars and students.

"In that way, Erasmus funds could be employed to support Hungarian students studying in other Member States while not permitting students from elsewhere to study at corrupted Hungarian universities and Hungarian scholars could again have access to European research funds,” they added.