Andrea Bocskor, a Transcarpathian Hungarian MEP for the ruling Fidesz party in Hungary, has posted to her Facebook page, informing all about her speech in front of the European Parliament’s Committee on Culture and Education in Strasbourg, France. In it, she called for an immediate end to the exclusion of Hungarian students and academics from the Erasmus programme.
‘It is unacceptable that 200,000 Hungarian students, 20,000 university teachers and 20,000 researchers have been excluded from EU mobility programmes by the Commission on the basis of the European Council decision of 15 December 2022, and in the course of negotiations that have been ongoing for more than a year, we have seen the European Commission imposing new conditions for lifting the exclusion again and again.
Teachers, students and researchers from the model universities are the victims of an unfair, disproportionate and discriminatory procedure that is totally contrary to fundamental EU rights,’
she wrote in her post.
Funds allocated within the Erasmus programme were originally frozen in December 2022, for supposed excessive political influence in Hungarian universities’ board of trustees. Subsequently, Hungarian students and researchers were robbed of the opportunity to study or teach abroad by the Brussels bureaucrats. Since then, many experts have criticized the decision, saying that there is no part in any of the EU treaties that allow a Brussels body to do that, and that the academic freedom of Hungarians was thus violated.
Despite the obvious unfoundedness of the accusations, the liberal-majority European Parliament adopted an amendment in January 2024 that calls for the Hungarian government to immediately comply with EU demands on rule of law concerns in order to let Hungarian students and researchers take part in the programme again. Curiously, even Hungarian MEPs from liberal opposition parties supported the proposal, going against their own country’s interest.
Thankfully, the 13 Fidesz MEPs, spearheaded by MEP Bocskor, are working hard to get to a resolution and thus help their fellow Hungarians advance in their academic careers.
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