Orbán’s spokesman may have cheated to get his PhD from CEU

Government spokesman on international affairs Zoltán Kovács has harshly criticized the Central European University (CEU) recently for several things, including such statements as the Soros-founded school has a competitive edge over other higher education institutions as it issues American as well as Hungarian degrees. The politician has already been confronted with the fact that he also obtained CEU’s American PhD. However, as news site Alfahír reported on Thursday, it was Mr Kovács’ second PhD in the same discipline (history) and, interestingly enough, he submitted essentially the same dissertation at both universities.

Mr Kovács, who was still active in the academic area at the time, got into contact with Central European University one year after it was founded. In parallel with his studies in Debrecen, he participated in CEU’s MA course in 1992-93. Having completed it, he studied another year at The Queen’s College of Oxford with a Soros scholarship, then he had a research scholarship at the CEU from 1996 to 1999. This period included four months of research at London’s University College and three months at Washington’s Woodrow Wilson Center.

The theme of his doctorate studies was the political image of the Habsburg monarchy in mid-18th-century England. That was also the topic of his dissertation titled „Anglo-Austrian diplomatic relations and the political image of the Habsburg Monarchy in mid-eighteenth-century England” which he submitted at the University of Debrecen in 2001.

In comparison, the title of his dissertation for the CEU is the second half of his Debrecen paper: „The political image of the Habsburg Monarchy in mid-eighteenth-century England.” But that’s just the smallest problem, of course. The biggest trouble is that the contents of the two dissertations are essentially identical.