Mayor: Budapest would happily welcome the CEU and its students and teachers back – Reactions
CEU head
CEU head Michael Ignatieff hailed the ECJ ruling as a major moral and legal victory for academic freedom. At a press conference held in Vienna, he said that a benchmark decision had been passed to reinforce legal protection for Europe’s free institutions. He welcomed that the ruling annulled Hungary’s “lex CEU” and restored the CEU’s freedoms. He added, however, that
the university would maintain its campus in Vienna, while plans concerning Budapest were yet to be finalised.
Socialists
István Hiller, Socialist deputy speaker of parliament, said he did not expect the ruling to change the situation, adding that “the government will stick to its point”. He said that a political decision had led to the contested legislation, and argued that
“the problem was not with the performance of the CEU but with the fact that it had been founded by George Soros”.
He insisted that issues around the university could only be resolved through a “political change”.
Budapest Mayor
Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony said
the city would “happily” welcome the university and its students and teachers back.
“Today the European Court of Justice ruled that lex CEU breaches EU law and that it’s simply unacceptable in Europe,” Karácsony said on Facebook. “I am under no illusion as to whether the government will repent and invite CEU back but Budapest would happily welcome the university, its teachers and students back.”
Driving away the country’s most internationally renowned university was “one of the most outrageous government decisions of the last ten years”, the mayor said.
“The university’s move to Vienna made both the country and Budapest poorer and the capital’s previous leadership silently played along,” Karácsony said. “The government considered its deceitful propaganda more important than education and respecting academic freedom.”
3 Comments
Hopefully CEU will be able to return to.Budapest.
Mario, why don’t you find a new hobby and do something useful with your life like getting an education, you may learn that liberalism is a cancer that slowly devours its host. You have a full blown stage 4 infestation. Only a parasite would invite CEU back into Hungary to return to peddling moral degeneracy and anti Hungarian globalist marxist doctrine.
Assuming that the CEU returns to Budapest AND that it offers a medical degree, then maybe the likes of Mario could be preserved with formalin for future generations to ‘gawk at’ in a museum of medical oddities.