This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Tens of thousands of people have protested in Budapest against legislation that could force the Central European University, founded by the financier George Soros, to move out of Hungary.



A bill passed in parliament by the ruling rightwing Fidesz party of the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, a critic of liberal civil organisations funded by Soros, targeted CEU by setting out numerous conditions under which it must operate.

The bill has led to criticism from hundreds of leading academics worldwide as well as the US government and EU.

The EU has tolerated Viktor Orbán for too long. It has to take a stand now | Cas Mudde Read more

The Hungarian president, János Áder, must sign the bill by Monday to make it law. The protesters said they wanted to convince him to reject the bill and refer it for constitutional review.

“What do we want Ader to do? Veto,” the crowd chanted. “Free country, free university.”

“The government wants to silence pretty much everyone who doesn’t think the same as them, who thinks freely, who can be liberal, can be leftist,” said Kornel Klopfstein, a protest organiser and PhD student at the University of Bielefeld.

“According to the government, one of the centres of these people is at CEU … We should stand up for academic freedom and for CEU.”

The government has also looked to combat dissent by proposing tighter rules on non-governmental organisations, which will have to register with authorities if they have a yearly overseas income of 7.2m forints (£20,000).

Orbán’s view that European culture faces an existential threat from migration and multiculturalism is at odds with Soros’ outlook. The prime minister has often said NGOs are doing the bidding of the billionaire investor.

Klopfstein said: “The government is always looking for someone to fight with and Soros seems like a perfect person for this, because he funds NGOs in Hungary and he funds CEU.”

The CEU rector, Michael Ignatieff, said the school will continue operations as normal and demanded that the law be scrapped and additional international guarantees of academic freedoms be added to current legal safeguards.

The US state department will send diplomats to Budapest next week to address the CEU crisis, said Ignatieff, who spent several days in Washington to lobby the US government, lawmakers and media.

Bara Bognar, 40, a finance professional involved in the protest, said: “They want to completely undermine and eradicate what remains of civil society.

“The method, the lack of dialogue, the efforts for years to annihilate all democratic institutions – this cannot be the future of us or our children.”