More of political complications: big street demonstration on the CEU case

HUNGARY - In Brief 10 Apr 2017 by Istvan Racz

---

The biggest street demonstration since the Fidesz government started in 2010 took place in Budapest yesterday, with 50-80 thousand participants (depending which side you are asking). Demonstrators, mainly, but far not exclusively university students and other young intellectuals, protested a most recent amendment of the basic parliamentary act on university education, according to which the Central European University, by far the highest rated university in Hungary, should close its doors in less than a year unless it meets some nonsensical-looking conditions. CEU is a US based university accredited in the State of New York, but it only has a campus in Budapest. For it to get the right to continue in Hungary, the new amendment requires the university to start a campus also in the US, and the US federal government to enter into an agreement with Hungary on the issue, or endorse a similar agreement between Hungary and the government of the State of New York. (We are no great experts of US constitutional law, but we have been advised that the US government simply does not have the legal authority to enter into intergovernmental agreements or endorse an agreement signed by a US state on this specific subject.)Quite clearly, the problem with CEU is that it was founded and has been primarily financed by George Soros, who has appeared for a while as the public enemy No1 for Fidesz. PM Orbán, who openly expressed AFTER the latest parliamentary election in 2014 that his political ideal is an illiberal democracy (one in which citizens have the right to vote on parliament and local governments in every 4-5 years but the government can operate in an essentially uncontrolled fashio...