Several government figures still remain on boards of university foundations, even though a few resigned

Judit Varga, Mihály Varga, Csaba Lantos, János Lázár, István Nagy, Péter Szijjártó, and Tibor Navracsics all resigned from their positions as heads of the boards of trustees of foundations operating universities

– Gergely Gulyás, the prime minister's Chief of Staff announced at the government briefing on Thursday. Gulyás also said that the same is expected of the state secretaries, deputy state secretaries and government commissioners. (This second sentence was not included in the original version of our article on the briefing, the inaccuracy has since been corrected by updating it.)

However, when asked whether high-ranking Fidesz politicians, such as Fidesz mayors, could continue to be members of the boards of trustees of foundations that run universities, Gulyás said that if there is such a requirement from Brussels, they will consider it.

The minister said on Thursday that he did not yet know exactly who would remain on the boards of trustees because Brussels had not set out its expectations clearly.

He said it was a good thing that the term of appointment of the trustees was for life, but no decision had been made to change this yet. However, if the European Commission requests this to be changed, then the government is open to doing so and making the trustees' term of office fixed. Gulyás promised that a bill on this would be submitted if an agreement could be reached with the European Commission.

The news broke on 9 January, that educational institutions in Hungary which operate as public interest trusts or are maintained by public interest trusts will not be eligible for EU funding in the future.

Prior to Thursday's announcement, Gulyás said that during the three-day cabinet meeting they had discussed "the situation pertaining to the EU" and concluded that they would like to reach an agreement with Brussels as soon as possible. He said the government had always been willing to make reasonable compromises that did not harm Hungary's interests. However, he added that in his opinion there was no community legal basis for the EU's request.

The minister failed to detail some parts of the story

The fact is, however, that neither what Gulyás said about the lack of clarity of expectations is valid, nor is his statement about the community legal basis understandable. The European Commission and the Member States have made it clear that

• the problem with the foundations is that politicians with legislative roles are on their boards, as well as the fact that as ministers, state secretaries or MPs, they can directly influence the allocation of resources, while the trustee entities concerned can be beneficiaries of the same. On top of this, decisions about public procurements are also made by the boards of trustees.
• it was also made clear that there is a problem with the rules, which this resignation of ministers does not help much.

Last December's decision on the suspension of payments also clearly states that

"despite repeated requests from the Commission, there is still no Hungarian legislation preventing high-ranking officials, including senior political leaders of the Hungarian Parliament and Hungarian autonomous bodies from joining the boards of public interest trusts".

The document also regrets that instead of following the Commission's initial proposal, the rules on conflicts of interest were actually relaxed further in November. In addition, Gulyás kept talking about the European Commission's decision, when in fact it was the member states that had made it. Had they found the Hungarian measures at least partially sufficient, they could have relaxed the ban, but they did so only in one other case, and upheld the ban on public foundations. (In the case of three operational programmes, the Commission's 65% freeze proposal was reduced to 55%.)

It was on 15 December last year that the ministers of the Member States – i.e. the Council of the European Union – decided to withhold certain funding from Hungary. At that time, public foundations and the institutions they manage were excluded from new commitments in all EU programs. Two of them, the Erasmus+ education exchange program and Horizon Europe, which supports research and innovation, are particularly important for universities. The universities that have undergone a model change ran into trouble because they pose a "serious risk" to the EU budget, according to member states.

The decision does not automatically mean that the programs will stop immediately. The European Commission has confirmed that there are no problems with commitments already signed before 15 December, and that in the case of Erasmus+ a significant number of contracts was signed with universities in mid-2022, which cover the bulk of the costs until mid-2024. Sources in Brussels with insight into the matter have told us that this includes public foundation-run universities.

Institutions have until 12 noon on 23 February to apply for the new round and, as we have previously reported, there is no hurdle to doing so. The commitment itself would only come later, in June or July, so if the ban is lifted by the ministers in the Council of the European Union by then, the public foundation universities will not miss out. But this would require the institutions to submit their applications.

Following the announcement on the removal of ministerial conflicts of interest, we have also put questions to the European Commission, and asked for their reaction to what was said at the government's briefing. We will report back as soon as we receive a response.

Judit Varga and Mihály Varga are both chairing boards

Several current Secretaries of State, Ministers, Government Commissioners and Ministerial Commissioners are sitting on the boards of trustees of universities that have undergone a model change. According to today's announcement, of these, the ministers are stepping down. This means that the other government ministers listed below would still be staying:

Corvinus University, Budapest:

• Board member: László György Government Commissioner responsible for professional cooperation on economic strategy and the coordination of the Tanítsunk Magyarországért (Let's Teach for Hungary) program.

Budapest Business School:

• Chairman of the Board of Trustees: Zoltán Guller, Ministerial Commissioner responsible for the establishment and operation of the Digital Hungary Agency.

Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences:

• Board member: János Lázár, Minister of Construction and Investement (resigning)
• Board member: István Nagy, Minister of Agriculture (resigning)

University of Miskolc:

• Chairwoman of the board: Judit Varga, Minister of Justice (resigning), with a gross monthly salary of HUF 1.4 million.

Óbuda University:

• Chairman of the board: Mihály Varga, Minister of Finance (resigning).

Pannon University:

• Chairman of the board: Tibor Navracsics, Minister of Regional Development (resigning). He told Karc FM radio station that he will not be picking up his salary, but will donate it to the students of Pannon University.

Széchenyi István Univeristy:

• Chairman of the board: Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade (resigning), with gross monthly salary of HUF 1.5 million.

Sopron University:

• Board member: János Péter Zambó, State Secretary for Forests and Land

Szeged University:

• Board member: Csaba Lantos, Minister of Energy (resigning).

University of Physical Education:

• Board member: Ádám Schmidt, State Secretary for Sport at the Ministry of Defense

Tokaj-Hegyalja University:

• Board member: György Wáberer, Government Commissioner for the Development of the Tokaj-Zemplén Region.