Central European University is prepared to move its base of operations out of Hungary if the government of Viktor Orbán does not sign a deal to legalise its status soon, its rector has said.

“We can’t go into another academic year like this. We’re in a holding pattern but it’s not going to go on too much longer,” said Michael Ignatieff, CEU’s rector and a former liberal politician in his native Canada, in an interview at the CEU campus in Budapest.

Michael Ignatieff. Photograph: Bernadett Szabo/Reuters

Ignatieff said the university had demanded a resolution by the start of the new academic year, and that if the government refused to sign, it would be forced to move much of its operations to Vienna. “You can’t run a university in legal limbo, and you can’t have academic freedom without the rule of law,” he said.



The Budapest-based university is often seen as a bastion of liberalism, where thousands of students from across central Europe and the former Soviet Union have a received a world-class education in English over the past two decades.

Orbán has championed the concept of “illiberal democracy”, and his Fidesz party was re-elected with a two-thirds parliamentary majority last month on an anti-migrant, anti-Soros platform.

Hungary’s new parliament is expected to pass the so-called “Stop Soros” legislation in the coming weeks. The bill is targeted at what the government claims is a campaign by the Hungarian-born American financier George Soros to undermine the country and promote immigration. Civil society groups say it will make the work of NGOs dealing with migration issues impossible.



On Tuesday, Soros’s Open Society Foundations formally announced they will move their Budapest office to Berlin, confirming earlier rumours.



When the Hungarian government moved against CEU last year, saying it violated Hungarian law, mass protests in Budapest and howls of indignation from foreign capitals prompted a rare climbdown from Orbán. However, a final settlement was not reached.

The “Stop Soros” law will not target CEU, but the university was founded by Soros and is frequently referred to by government-controlled media as a politicised, anti-government institution. It will soon become clear whether the campaign against CEU was simply political point-scoring, or part of a vendetta that will be seen through to the end.



Q&A Why is Hungary going after George Soros? Show The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has used scaremongering tactics about migrants and refugees as the cornerstone of his politics in the past few years, but in classic populist style he has also required a shadowy, nefarious overlord to target. In Orbán’s case, that figure has been George Soros, who perfectly fits the bill as both insider and outsider in Hungary. Soros was born György Schwartz to a family of Hungarian Jews in 1930, but his father changed their surname to make it more Hungarian. His family split up and lived under assumed identities to escape the Holocaust, and Soros left Hungary in 1947 to study in London. He later emigrated to the US, making billions as an investor and hedge fund manager. His Open Society foundations have donated billions to promoting civil society and human rights, particularly in the former Communist countries of central and eastern Europe. Soros is a favoured target of rightwing governments worldwide, including in Israel. Hungarian officials have used criticism of Soros by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to deflect allegations of antisemitism around their own anti-Soros campaign. However, at times, the rhetoric appears to borrow heavily from antisemitic tropes. In a March speech in which he accused the political opposition of being “Soros candidates”, Orbán referred to his enemies as “not straightforward but crafty; not honest but base; not national but international; does not believe in working but speculates with money”.



Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images Europe

“I’ve been in politics. You say a lot of things to win elections,” said Ignatieff. “I genuinely don’t know if this was just to win an election or is there something else. There’s no question this is a government with a very strong point of view. Is this an ideology? Is this a vision? How far are they going to go with that vision?”



A deal appeared to be reached back in September, but the Hungarian government has yet to sign. Ignatieff said CEU had done everything to comply with the Hungarian government’s requests, including opening a US campus. A negotiated agreement had been waiting for Hungarian government sign-off since September, he said, adding: “We’ve met our obligations and it’s now time for them to meet theirs.”

In the days after the election result, Orbán refused to rule out shutting down the university, saying he had not yet discussed the issue with the new government.



The European People’s party, the centre-right grouping in the European parliament of which Fidesz is a member, has been criticised for sheltering Orbán, but EPP officials have claimed that without their pressure, the Hungarian government would have closed CEU last year.



Over the past eight years, Orbán’s government has cracked down on free media and brought a number of previously independent institutions under its control. There is growing unease in parts of the EPP about how much further a newly emboldened Orbán might push the boundaries. Closure of CEU and a full-blown assault on the judiciary are seen as potential red lines for Orbán’s European partners.

In a speech last week to launch his new term in office, Orbán made no secret of his desire to remain in power for many more years, and continue with his project to reshape Hungary, saying he was not thinking about only this four-year term but looking ahead at the next 12 years.

“They raised the pitch so high that it’s hard for them to back down now without losing face,” said one western diplomat based in Budapest. “All the indications are that the ‘Stop Soros’ laws will be passed. They may keep CEU open, but will try to do it quietly, as it looks confusing when they’ve just run a whole election campaign on an anti-Soros platform.”



Ignatieff said he sympathised with the NGOs affected by the “Stop Soros” laws, but that CEU’s fight was different. “Our purpose is not to hold the government to account. That’s not what universities do.”

“Our mission has always been to teach people to be free: meaning sceptical, dispassionate, knowledgeable, smart and hardworking. The symbolic issue is whether there is space for a free institution in this kind of society ... That’s a decision for the government, and it is a decision that will have huge ramifications for what Hungary is.”



Many CEU professors are already scoping out Vienna ahead of a potential move, and Ignatieff said he was willing to move the centre of operations to the Austrian capital if the Hungarian government refused to sign the deal in the coming months.

“But I will say that if we get pushed, we will not go quietly, and I think they know that,” he warned.