Central European University — run by former Canadian Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff — has confirmed it will move its U.S.-accredited degree programs from the Hungarian capital of Budapest to Vienna as of September 2019 after Hungary’s government refused to sign an agreement allowing it to stay.
Ignatieff, CEU president and rector, said Monday the university “has been forced out.”
“This is unprecedented. A U.S. institution has been driven out of a country that is a NATO ally. A European institution has been ousted from a member state of the EU. “
CEU’s ouster is part of populist, anti-immigration Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ideological battle against Hungarian-American financier and CEU founder George Soros and his “open society” model.
The university said it would retain “accreditation as a Hungarian university and … continue teaching and research activity in Budapest as long as possible.”