When I was finishing my PhD at Leiden University in 1997, the job prospects in the Netherlands were bleak. I had never thought about leaving my country but wanted to stay in academia, so I looked for opportunities abroad. When I heard about a one-semester teaching opportunity at Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, I knew nothing about the place, but accepted because I was curious about living in “the post-communist world” and welcomed the opportunity to be closer, literally and figuratively, to my then partner, a Slovak.

I worked at CEU for two years, teaching some of the most wonderful students I have ever taught. At that time, almost all of them were from former communist countries, from Armenia to Uzbekistan, while its faculty was largely from North America and western Europe. Today, my former students include a professor at Yale University and a vice president of a university in the region. They would not be where they are today without the CEU, which provided them a fully funded opportunity to get a top-notch western education.

CEU is an American-Hungarian university, accredited in both countries, which was founded and funded by the American-Hungarian investor and philanthropist George Soros. Although it is the highest-ranked Hungarian university in the world, and its facilities and faculty are important resources for scholars and students at the other (underfunded) Hungarian universities, its relationship with its host country has been complicated. Or, to be more precise, its relationship with Fidesz and its party leader, and current prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has been contentious. Orbán’s administration has just introduced draft legislation that could force CEU out of Hungary. This is in itself not that surprising, as CEU is everything Orbán detests: it is critical, global, independent and multicultural.

I was working at CEU in 1998 when Orbán came to power for the first time, leading a conservative but overall pro-western coalition government. Although a Soros fellowship had enabled Orbán to study at Oxford University, which helped him become the darling of the western political establishment, he had already become critical of the Soros network, which next to CEU also includes the Open Society Foundations, then the third-biggest investor in higher education in the region (after Germany and the US) and currently one of the most influential NGOs in the world. Orbán’s government discussed various initiatives that targeted CEU, including the revocation of Hungarian accreditation, but in the end not that much happened.

‘CEU is everything Viktor Orbán detests: it is critical, global, independent, and multicultural.’ Photograph: Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images

But that was 20 years ago. Orbán had only started to flex his authoritarian muscles, but was still seen, and mostly acted, as a pro-western, rightwing politician. Moreover, it was a different global context. The US was a strong defender of pro-western forces in the region, while the EU was the most revered institution in Europe. No central European leader could risk being left out of the accession process, as the illiberal democrat Vladimír Mečiar experienced in neighbouring Slovakia.

Today Orbán is no longer the darling of the western establishment, but rather the role model of illiberal democrats across Europe, from Marine Le Pen in France to the current government in Poland. Having transformed his own country into an illiberal democracy, Orbán has become a European actor, directly challenging German chancellor Angela Merkel and her vision of an inclusive and integrated Europe. Emboldened by Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, he proclaimed in his 2017 state of the nation speech: “We were black sheep, but now we are a success story, and this is also acknowledged – although perhaps reluctantly – by those who don’t like what we have achieved and how we have achieved it. Nothing succeeds like success.”

Orbán believes that liberal democracy has had its day and a more nationalist illiberal era is here, obviously started by him in Hungary. In his struggle against “money, the media, global governance and an open global society” – a very clear reference to Soros, with thinly veiled antisemitic overtones – he feels strengthened by the new powerholders in the UK and US, while at the same time banking on the continued political coverage of the European People’s party (EPP), the most powerful political group in the EU.

It should be clear by now that Orbán’s actions are not merely a domestic affair. First of all, Hungary is a member of the EU and should respect its laws. Second, Hungary has become a bellwether for illiberal democracy in Europe and an inspiration for illiberal democrats throughout the region. Hence, the struggle over CEU is not just about that unique university, it is about all universities, and it is about liberal democracy. If we don’t take a stand now, we will be fighting similar measures in Poland and other countries soon.

The time of accommodating Orbán must end now. It has failed. It has not moderated him, as EPP leaders continue to claim. Rather, it is radicalising others and hollowing out the very values the EU, and EPP, claim to stand for. This week, Merkel took a strong stand against Orbán, as he attacked her refugee policies in a by-now familiar Islamophobic, far-right speech at the EPP meeting in Malta. It is time the EPP chooses between Merkel and Orbán, between liberal democracy and illiberal democracy, between a worldview in which universities are encouraged to be critical and independent and one in which critical and independent universities are threatened with closure.