Government pressure has forced the Central European University in Budapest to suspend its educational programmes for registered refugees and asylum seekers.
The move hits a programme called the Open Learning Initiative (OLIve), and also forces the CEU to stop administering its European Union-funded Marie Curie Research Grant on migration policy in central and southern Europe.
The CEU has long been a target of Viktor Orb¨¢n¡¯s populist right-wing and anti-immigrant government in Hungary, which also recently moved to shut down gender studies in the country. The university¡¯s decision to teach refugees, CEU president Michael Ignatieff has suggested, may have been a major factor in the hostility it has attracted.
The institution had been compelled to suspend OLIve, according to a spokesperson, ¡°in response to Hungarian legislation in respect of refugees and immigration which came into effect on 24?August. CEU¡¯s action follows advice from our tax advisers in respect of potential liability for a 25 per cent levy on our immigration-related programmes.¡±
The spokesperson stressed that the OLIve programmes had provided training only for ¡°persons legally admitted to Hungary¡± and that?the CEU?was consulting lawyers with a view to finding ways ¡°to continue this work in the future¡±.
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