According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Press Chief, Tamás Menczer, there is no need to protect Hungarian academic freedom during the course of negotiations with the Governor of the State of New York State on the Central European University (CEU), because nobody is endangering it.
The Ministry’s Press Chief issued a statement to Hungarian news agency MTI on Saturday with relation to the fact that representatives of the Hungarian Government held negotiations on the CEU with Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo on Friday.
The Governor said the meeting had been a success and told reporters: “We met to discuss the new law that is endangering the continuous presence of the CEU in Hungary, and the urgent need to preserve academic freedom”.
In reaction, Mr. Menczer said: “Nobody in Hungary is endangering academic freedom and the goal of the negotiations is not to change the Hungarian law, because legislation in Hungary is the task of Parliament, and not foreign parties”.
“What is the goal of negotiations, however, is to examine what foreign universities conform to the stipulations of Hungarian law”, he added.
According to the statement, Prime Ministerial Commissioner Kristóf Altusz also said the talks were successful: “Our Chinese, Malaysian and Thai negotiating partners have raised no objections at all with relation to the new regulations, and two out of the three American universities involved have also indicated their willingness to cooperate. The U.S. Government’s Secretary of Education also raised no objections to the Hungarian regulations”, the statement reads.