Central European University, Forced Out of Budapest Under Orban, Open to Expanding Its Presence There Again
The Central European University (CEU), which was forced to move its main activities from Budapest to Vienna under pressure from the government of former Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, is now open to expanding its presence in Budapest. The university's interim president and rector, Carsten Q Schneider, told the Guardian it was interested in increasing its programmes in Budapest, as long as this did not damage the student experience.
Schneider said the CEU has not yet held formal talks with Hungary's new government, which has promised to restore academic freedom. In his words, 'our hand is reaching out, their hand is reaching out - it is just that they have many things to do.'
The CEU relocated its main activities to Vienna from Budapest in 2019, after pressure from the previous government led by Orban. The outlook changed when Peter Magyar won a landslide victory in April pledging to root out corruption and reform the state.
The CEU was founded by Hungarian-American financier and philanthropist George Soros in 1991 to entrench democratic change in the region. It was forced to cease awarding degrees in Budapest in response to a law widely seen as targeting the institution.
The EU's highest court struck down Hungary's 'Lex CEU' in 2020, finding that it violated the EU charter of fundamental rights, but the verdict came too late for the university.
The CEU retains 312 staff in Budapest, mostly administrative, but the majority, 476, and all its teaching, are in Vienna.
Schneider said upgrading the status of the CEU in Budapest would be 'a symbol for academic freedom [and] of resilience' but depended on goodwill and funding independent of the Hungarian government. A decision on its future in Hungary would be taken by the CEU's 13-member board, whose members include Soros and his son, Alexander Soros.
'We don't want special treatment,' Schneider said. 'We are a great asset, so let's work out something.' But the CEU, which he said was 'thriving tremendously' in Vienna, does not plan a wholesale return to Budapest. Any change would have to ensure the quality of the student experience, for instance assuring that students could combine courses, say in economics and history, without travelling the 200km-plus distance between the two cities.
Focused on social sciences, law and humanities, the CEU has more than 1,400 students from 103 countries, mostly doing master's and PhD programmes.
According to Schneider, for the first time in the CEU's 25-year history, students from the US now make up the largest cohort of master's students (10%). The CEU has seen an increase in US applicants since Donald Trump returned to the White House and launched a sweeping campaign against elite universities.
He recalled the outpouring of support for CEU - when tens of thousands of people protested in Budapest in defence of the university - as 'one of the most humbling experiences I have had.'
