Why don’t you leave the EU?’ Furious civil war breaks out in Jean-Claude Juncker's party
CIVIL war has broken out in the European People’s Party (EPP) group in Strasbourg as a row over new laws aimed at Hungary’s Central European University (CEU) boiled over.
By Simon Osborne
PUBLISHED: 10:14, Thu, Apr 6, 2017 | UPDATED: 13:56, Thu, Apr 6, 2017
Hungarian MPs have passed a bill placing tough restrictions on foreign universities but the main target is believed to be the CEU and its billionaire financier founder George Soros.
Members of the party, which is led by European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, have accused Hungary’s ruling Fidesz Party of attacking academic independence and called for the expulsion of its MEPs from the group in retaliation.
The English-speaking CEU, which is still partly-funded by Hungarian-born Mr Soros, is ranked among the top 200 universities in the world.
But government minister Zoltan Balog said it was "against Hungary's interests to host experiments, financially supported and evading democratic 'rules of the game' in the background, which aim at undermining the lawfully elected government or leadership".
Opponents see the move as the latest battle in a war against liberalism declared by right-wing Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban,
The bill effectively forces the CEU out of Hungary as it requires foreign universities to have a campus both in their home countries and CEU only has a campus in Budapest.
It also bans universities outside the EU from awarding Hungarian diplomas without an agreement between national governments - in this case, the US.
CEU Rector Michael Ignatieff said the bill marks "the first time that a member of the European Union dared to legislate an attack on the cademic freedom of a university".
And it has caused a massive rift within the European Parliament’s EPP group with members turning against each other.
The Hungarian EPP delegation has compared complaints from the group to a “virtual reality” created by “the propaganda and private agenda of the American billionaire Soros” and claimed the Orban government was a victim of “the present unfortunate world of fake news and propaganda”.
But Frank Engel, a Luxembourg EPP colleague of Mr Juncker wrote back: “Forget the crap. We know what is happening, and why.
“The ONLY reasonable question is: why don’t you leave both the EPP and the EU on your own terms?
“You’re practically and factually out anyway. So go. Please go.”