The government of Viktor Orbán has been accused of targeting CEU with the legislationEuropa Pont

A number of Cambridge University societies representing European nationalities have put out a statement expressing their “commitment to defending bastions of academic freedom in Europe and beyond” in response to legislation before the Hungarian Parliament which they claim is “targeting” the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest.

The Cambridge University Belgian, Dutch, Estonian, European, French, German, Hellenic, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Polish, Scandinavian, Scottish, and Welsh Societies and Cambridge University Students from Luxembourg all put their signatures to the statement voicing “concern about the effect the proposed changes would have on the prospects of aspiring Hungarian scholars returning home”.

The statement also joins Alex Mayer, the local East of England MEP, in “expressing concern about the actions and rhetoric of Viktor Orbán’s government, and their implications for current and future university ties between Cambridge and Hungary”.

Alongside expressing solidarity with CEU students, faculty members and staff, the statement urges the Hungarian National Assembly to “abandon the proposed legislation and begin negotiations” to ensure the university remains ” a viable contributor to scientific and humanistic discourse.”

The statement comes at the same time as a letter of solidarity sent by past and present Regius Professors of History and the University of Cambridge and University of Oxford to Zoltan Balog, Minister of Human Capacities, to express their concern about the proposed amendments.

The letter describes CEU as “bastion of free thought and academic excellence”, with which many signatories have had past contact.

Calling upon the Hungarian government to withdraw the legislation, they argue that it is in “Hungary’s own interest as well as that of the international academic community that CEU’s outstanding reputation and academic freedom should be safeguarded.”

CEU has already expressed its opposition to the amendments proposed by the government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to a higher education bill, calling them “discriminatory and unacceptable” and arguing that they would make it “impossible” for the institution to continue as a “free and independent international graduate university”.

The institution particularly highlighted amendments that will impose work permit vetting on non-EU faculty and require it to open an additional campus in the state of New York, which it says “would have no educational benefit and would incur needless financial and human resource costs.”

In a Youtube video posted on Saturday, Michael Ignatieff, CEU’s president and former leader of Canada’s Liberal Party, said they will resist the legislation: “When we resist it we’re not just fighting for CEU, we’re fighting for Hungarian Higher Education, the freedom of academic institutions across Europe and across the world.”

The US-linked University was established in 1991 by American-Hungarian financier and philanthropist George Soros, during a time when the region was transitioning from a communist dictatorship to democracy. The new amendment looks to be part of a wider crackdown on non-governmental organisations receiving funding from George Soros’s Open Society Foundation (OSF), according to the Financial Times.

Hungary is not the first to tighten restrictions on OSF funded groups. Russia and Uzbekistan, among other countries, have expelled such groups in the past.

“It would be hard to imagine life without the CEU.”

Éva Fodor, pro-rector of Social Sciences and Humanities at CEU

But Education Ministry State Secretary Laszlo Palkovics said that the legislation “isn’t targeted at CEU or against Mr Soros” and that the Hungarian government would be willing to create an accord between itself and the US government to keep the university open.

Sceptics have claimed that Orbán’s administration is hoping that President Donald Trump will not support Soros, however, as a result of the latter’s long association with liberal and internationalist causes and with the Democratic Party, which have made him a right-wing bugbear in the USA.

Éva Fodor, pro-rector of Social Sciences and Humanities at CEU, told Varsity that the effects of the legislation on UK-Hungary ties could be severe for students: “It would certainly impact the students who come from the UK but we also send a lot of students to UK universities.

“In some ways, CEU acts as a starting stone for a number of students from the central European regions who come here to get used to the Anglo-Saxon education.

“There is also lively academic exchange between us and a number of UK universities, with lots of research collaborations. It would be hard to imagine life without the CEU.”

In a statement to the Budapest Business Journal, the head of the US Embassy in Hungary said the CEU “is a premier academic institution with an excellent reputation in Hungary and around the world, and it stands as an important centre of academic freedom in the region.”

Coming a year before the next national elections, these amendments are reminiscent of similar crackdowns in Russia, where the European University in St Petersburg had its licence revoked last month