Hungarian president Janos Ader signed a controversial law on Monday that could force the renowned Central European University to leave Budapest.
Up to 80,000 people marched through the city on Sunday to protest against the move in a major show of opposition to populist prime minister Viktor Orban, whom critics accuse of curtailing democracy during seven years in power.
The demonstrators called on Mr Ader to veto the Bill or send it to the constitutional court for consideration, but the loyal ally of Mr Orban said he saw no legal problem with the reform.
The European Union and US have criticised the education law, which Hungary's parliament approved last week, and leading academics from around the world have appealed to Mr Orban to change course.
He insists the reform is aimed only at ensuring fairness in Hungary's education sector by removing CEU's current power to grant degrees that are recognised in the EU and the US even though its only campus is in Europe.
Critics say the reform is part of an attack on liberal institutions linked to George Soros, the Budapest-born financier and philanthropist whom Mr Orban accuses of trying to undermine his government.
Civil society
Mr Soros founded CEU in 1991 as an element of his broad backing for democracy, transparency and civil society in the former communist bloc – goals that are also pursued by several influential NGOs that he funds in
Hungary
and the region.
The ruling Fidesz party now also wants to tighten financial control over NGOs that receive foreign funding in what is seen as another bid to restrict Soros-funded groups or drive them out of Hungary, where Mr Orban says he wants to create an “illiberal democracy”.
The education reform may force CEU to change its name and be subject to a new inter-governmental agreement between Hungary and the US – this could be problematic given Mr Soros's criticism of Mr Orban and US president Donald Trump.
While Mr Orban hailed Mr Trump’s election as the dawn of a new political era, Mr Soros called the US property magnate “a con artist and would-be dictator”.
Szilard Nemeth, the deputy chairman of Fidesz, said Mr Trump's election created the "international conditions" for Soros-funded groups to be "swept out" of Hungary.
Squeezing out
Mr Orban, meanwhile, declared that 2017 “would be about squeezing out the forces symbolised by Soros”.
Mr Orban has accused NGOs funded by Mr Soros of fuelling Europe’s refugee crisis, and threatening Europe’s security and identity by encouraging the arrival of large numbers of Muslims.
Also on Monday, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) urged the EU not to send asylum seekers back to Hungary because of new measures to detain almost all of them in border camps for the duration of their asylum process.
