The threatened Central European University may face a further year of uncertainty over its future in Hungary, after the government extended the compliance deadline for its higher education act to 2019.

Earlier this month the Budapest-based institution announced that it had agreed with Bard College to ¡°provide educational activities in New York¡± ¨C a move that it hoped would ¡°provide the basis for a speedy conclusion¡± to its long-running battle with authorities to stay in Hungary.

In April, the Hungarian government passed a law that imposed a range of restrictions on overseas universities in the country, including the need to maintain a campus in their home country.

But the university may now have to wait until January 2019 to find out whether its long-term future in the country has been secured, after the Hungarian parliament approved on 17 October a plan to extend the compliance deadline for the higher education act by a year.

ߣߣÊÓƵ

During a press conference following the parliament approval, CEU¡¯s president and rector Michael Ignatieff said the deadline extension creates an ¡°unnecessary delay¡± that subjects the university, which has spent ¡°six months in uncertainty¡±, to a further year of ¡°legal limbo¡±.

¡°A solution is on the table. And every time we get within reach of a solution the goal posts get moved, the criteria get changed,¡± he said.

ߣߣÊÓƵ

¡°The longer this goes on, the more the university suffers. It¡¯s as if we¡¯re being slowly strangled,¡± he added.

Professor Ignatieff called on the Hungarian government ¡°to sign the New York agreement now¡±.

Liviu Matei, CEU¡¯s provost and pro-rector, said that the government initially made no move to change the original deadline for compliance of January 2018, despite CEU and other organisations¡¯ protests that the timeframe would be ¡°very difficult to meet¡±.

¡°Now, however, that we do comply it is very interesting that the government decided to extend the deadline,¡± he said.

ߣߣÊÓƵ

ellie.bothwell@timeshighereducation.com?