The EU is quite proud of its flagship educational program, and with good reason. Erasmus and Erasmus+ have enabled more than three million students to study all over Europe. The program’s name is both a nod to the famous Renaissance scholar and an acronym for “EuRopean Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students.” When celebrating the 30th anniversary of the program, we were told
Erasmus provides people with the competences needed to lead independent, fulfilling lives. It helps them find their place in our societies and develop a sense of a European identity.
They are right, Erasmus is one of the EU’s resounding successes. Yet, for anyone celebrating it today there is a crucial footnote: “Most Hungarian students and universities need not apply as of September 2023.”
Indeed, under the Rule of Law Conditionality Regulation, 180,000 Hungarian students and two thirds of Hungarian universities will soon be expelled from both Erasmus and Horizon (the EU research program). They will suffer massive and irreparable reputational damage as a result of their exclusion. On what grounds exactly? In order to put such a draconian interdict into place, the Commission must have detected shocking infringement of EU legislation on the part of Hungarian students and universities, right?
The answer is no. Under the Conditionality Regulation adopted in 2020 and triggered for the first time against Hungary two days after Viktor Orbán won the national legislative elections in 2022, a mere suspicion suffices to adopt sanctions and by the same token hijack national competences. The Hungarian Erasmus case is paradigmatic of this new modus operandi. In 2018, the Hungarian government reformed its organization of higher education, and most Hungarian universities became public foundations partially managed by boards of trustees. The members of these boards often include famed personalities supposed to bring dynamism, opportunities, and fresh perspectives to those institutions. Among roughly one hundred trustees, eleven were politicians, mostly Ministers. Despite comprising only about ten percent of trustees, this was enough for the EU to declare this is a breach of the rule of law that “affect[s] or seriously risk[s] affecting the sound financial management of the Union budget or the protection of the financial interests of the Union in a sufficiently direct way.”
This is preposterous. Appointing politicians as trustees might not be the best idea, but similar cases exist in Belgium, France, Germany and Austria, countries that are under no such scrutiny. In addition, the EU does not even bother to properly apply its own regulation; it simply assumes there is an infringement without having to proving it. Hence the real question: is it lawful and just to sanction 180,000 Hungarian students (and 30,000 Erasmus students from abroad) on the mere suspicion that one day, maybe, one of those trustees might misuse or divert EU funds?
Legally, the exclusion of Hungarian students and universities ticks all the boxes of arbitrariness: gross violation of the presumption of innocence, collective punishment, and being doled out because of an imaginary and purely hypothetical future infringement. Could we envisage the exclusion of a national football league from a European tournament on the mere suspicion that one player of a given team might one day commit a foul?
The EU’s decision, abusing the law in the name of the rule of law, falls nothing short of Orwellian and will have dramatic consequences for students. Since the procedure started (before the sanction has even begun being enforced), research projects have been interrupted, partnerships cancelled, and thousands of students who dreamed of education elsewhere in Europe know they will remain at home. At the same time, citizens from Turkey, Serbia, Northern Macedonia, and Norway will fully benefit from Erasmus, and so will nationals from triple AAA democracies like Iran, Venezuela, and China under Erasmus Mundus. And why not? For them, Erasmus will remain the EU’s most popular initiative, one of the few that speaks to citizens, Europe’s best brand, and one of its best tools of soft power. But not for Hungarians.
In the current virtuous air du temps, some buzzwords have narcotic effects on minds and consciences. It seems enough to invoke notions like ‘rule of law,’ ‘academic freedom,’ ‘protection of financial interests,’ or ‘discrimination’ to commit legal, political, and moral abuses. Hopefully, many others will soon realize the magnitude of this infamy and the unfairness of this collective punishment whereby the majority of member states bully a whole generation, depriving them from opportunities offered to virtually any other student in the world. But I doubt it.
Legally, this case shows that the EU is discretely mutating into a financially autocratic regime, a top-down centralized organization whose whip is now used against Hungary and Poland but might well be used tomorrow against any country not toeing the line. Today’s bullies might be tomorrow’s victims, and the EU will be more and more divided in the name of common values. Politically, it is an appalling example of technocratic arrogance and blindness. While the EU constantly reminds the world of the dramatic situation of the youth—how much they suffered from the pandemic and anguished they are about their future—they deprive Hungarian youngsters from one of the few concrete opportunities Brussels can offer. Shooting themselves in the foot with a bright virtuous smile.
Morally, a disgrace: the ignominious targeting of one nationality, a blunt discrimination, and the prostitution of the EU’s most famous educational initiative into an infamous weapon of massive blackmail on one generation. All that amidst the resounding indifference of both Brussels and the capitals that adopted this decision. At this pace, by its 40th anniversary, Erasmus may not have aged well.
Infamous Erasmus? The Exclusion of Hungarian Students & University from the EU’s Iconic Initiative
“Erasmus of Rotterdam” (ca. 1532), a 18.4 x 14.2 cm oil on linden paper by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98–1543).
The EU is quite proud of its flagship educational program, and with good reason. Erasmus and Erasmus+ have enabled more than three million students to study all over Europe. The program’s name is both a nod to the famous Renaissance scholar and an acronym for “EuRopean Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students.” When celebrating the 30th anniversary of the program, we were told
They are right, Erasmus is one of the EU’s resounding successes. Yet, for anyone celebrating it today there is a crucial footnote: “Most Hungarian students and universities need not apply as of September 2023.”
Indeed, under the Rule of Law Conditionality Regulation, 180,000 Hungarian students and two thirds of Hungarian universities will soon be expelled from both Erasmus and Horizon (the EU research program). They will suffer massive and irreparable reputational damage as a result of their exclusion. On what grounds exactly? In order to put such a draconian interdict into place, the Commission must have detected shocking infringement of EU legislation on the part of Hungarian students and universities, right?
The answer is no. Under the Conditionality Regulation adopted in 2020 and triggered for the first time against Hungary two days after Viktor Orbán won the national legislative elections in 2022, a mere suspicion suffices to adopt sanctions and by the same token hijack national competences. The Hungarian Erasmus case is paradigmatic of this new modus operandi. In 2018, the Hungarian government reformed its organization of higher education, and most Hungarian universities became public foundations partially managed by boards of trustees. The members of these boards often include famed personalities supposed to bring dynamism, opportunities, and fresh perspectives to those institutions. Among roughly one hundred trustees, eleven were politicians, mostly Ministers. Despite comprising only about ten percent of trustees, this was enough for the EU to declare this is a breach of the rule of law that “affect[s] or seriously risk[s] affecting the sound financial management of the Union budget or the protection of the financial interests of the Union in a sufficiently direct way.”
This is preposterous. Appointing politicians as trustees might not be the best idea, but similar cases exist in Belgium, France, Germany and Austria, countries that are under no such scrutiny. In addition, the EU does not even bother to properly apply its own regulation; it simply assumes there is an infringement without having to proving it. Hence the real question: is it lawful and just to sanction 180,000 Hungarian students (and 30,000 Erasmus students from abroad) on the mere suspicion that one day, maybe, one of those trustees might misuse or divert EU funds?
Legally, the exclusion of Hungarian students and universities ticks all the boxes of arbitrariness: gross violation of the presumption of innocence, collective punishment, and being doled out because of an imaginary and purely hypothetical future infringement. Could we envisage the exclusion of a national football league from a European tournament on the mere suspicion that one player of a given team might one day commit a foul?
The EU’s decision, abusing the law in the name of the rule of law, falls nothing short of Orwellian and will have dramatic consequences for students. Since the procedure started (before the sanction has even begun being enforced), research projects have been interrupted, partnerships cancelled, and thousands of students who dreamed of education elsewhere in Europe know they will remain at home. At the same time, citizens from Turkey, Serbia, Northern Macedonia, and Norway will fully benefit from Erasmus, and so will nationals from triple AAA democracies like Iran, Venezuela, and China under Erasmus Mundus. And why not? For them, Erasmus will remain the EU’s most popular initiative, one of the few that speaks to citizens, Europe’s best brand, and one of its best tools of soft power. But not for Hungarians.
In the current virtuous air du temps, some buzzwords have narcotic effects on minds and consciences. It seems enough to invoke notions like ‘rule of law,’ ‘academic freedom,’ ‘protection of financial interests,’ or ‘discrimination’ to commit legal, political, and moral abuses. Hopefully, many others will soon realize the magnitude of this infamy and the unfairness of this collective punishment whereby the majority of member states bully a whole generation, depriving them from opportunities offered to virtually any other student in the world. But I doubt it.
Legally, this case shows that the EU is discretely mutating into a financially autocratic regime, a top-down centralized organization whose whip is now used against Hungary and Poland but might well be used tomorrow against any country not toeing the line. Today’s bullies might be tomorrow’s victims, and the EU will be more and more divided in the name of common values. Politically, it is an appalling example of technocratic arrogance and blindness. While the EU constantly reminds the world of the dramatic situation of the youth—how much they suffered from the pandemic and anguished they are about their future—they deprive Hungarian youngsters from one of the few concrete opportunities Brussels can offer. Shooting themselves in the foot with a bright virtuous smile.
Morally, a disgrace: the ignominious targeting of one nationality, a blunt discrimination, and the prostitution of the EU’s most famous educational initiative into an infamous weapon of massive blackmail on one generation. All that amidst the resounding indifference of both Brussels and the capitals that adopted this decision. At this pace, by its 40th anniversary, Erasmus may not have aged well.
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