European conservative party leader Manfred Weber gives a news conference inside the main synagogue in Budapest, Hungary, March 12, 2019. REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - The leader of the main conservative faction in the European Parliament said he tried to keep Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party in the group with an offer to resolve a dispute over a university which says it is being forced to leave the country.

Hungary’s moves against the Central European University, founded by Hungarian-American financier George Soros, were one of the issues that have led to a threat by the European People’s Party to eject Fidesz. The university says legal changes have left it no choice but to move to Austria.

Manfred Weber, the EPP candidate for EU Commission president after EU elections due in May, told journalists on Tuesday that he had developed a plan under which the Technical University of Munich, German auto maker BMW and American universities would create new teaching capacity for CEU to keep it in Budapest.