EU court denies request of University of Debrecen to open EU money tap

According to information obtained by Népszava, the EU Court of Justice has declined to revoke the decision banning EU commitments to public interest trusts and institutions and universities with such backgrounds. The decision is problematic because contracts for the Erasmus+ education exchange programme, due to begin next year, need to be signed by the middle of this month. The 21 foundation-run Hungarian universities which have undergone a model-change initiated by the government will not be able to do so until the restriction is lifted.

A ruling may take a year and a half – if the case is admissible at all

It was last December that member state ministers – at the suggestion of the European Commission – found that the operation of the foundations running the universities wasn’t transparent enough, and the body also objected to the conflict of interest created by politicians sitting on their boards, as well as pointing out that the Hungarian government had failed to address the Commission's objections, which had been made public months earlier. Despite ongoing negotiations, Minister of Regional Development Tibor Navracsics has failed to get the ban lifted.

Meanwhile, six model-changing universities have taken their cases to the European Court of Justice. The University of Debrecen specifically requested an immediate suspension of the ban, which was rejected by the EU body. A final ruling in the case is expected in about a year and a half, assuming that the judges even consider the petition admissible. The plaintiffs argue that the universities' decision-making is independent of the foundations' boards of trustees.

The government's hagglling continues

Meanwhile, according to Népszava, the government is still negotiating with the European Commission. In May, after numerous rounds of conciliation, Navracsics said that the normative text which would remedy the incompatibilities was about to be sent to the European Commission. According to Portfolio, the proposal was indeed sent out, but without some of the changes expected by the Commission..

At the end of June, the Commission spokesperson was unable to report any specific developments in the matter. According to Népszava's most recent information, there is still no agreement, for example, on the criteria for the selection of candidates for the board of trustees. The latest Hungarian proposal would leave the formulation of the criteria and the monitoring of their implementation to the State Audit Office, which the European Commission isn’t very happy about. Until an agreement on this is reached, other outstanding issues, such as how long someone can stay on the board, will remain unresolved.

According to Népszava, the EC may grant an extension

Just like in the case of the ban's introduction, the lifting of the ban is also decided by member state ministers on the basis of a Commission proposal, so it will take time before a formal decision is made. Népszava understands that the European Commission would be ready to review the fulfillment of the conditions much faster than the one-month deadline, so that the finance ministers could make a decision based on this. They may even extend the mid-July deadline for signing contracts by a few weeks, so that students and teachers from the institutions which have undergone a model change are not left out of Erasmus+.

There is already talk of millions of euros in damages

Both the current article in Népszava, and an earlier one in Portfolio, suggested that the government may be deliberately stalling, in order to secure concessions from the European Commission. However, the ban has already led to the model-changing universities complaining of millions of euros in damages and of being outcasts. The suspension affects all EU funds, including those for Horizon Europe, the world's biggest research programme. While the affected universities are able to apply to the programmes, they cannot receive EU funds, and the deadlines for signing contracts for previously submitted applications started to expire in May. The Hungarian budget has made up for the missing funds with HUF 5 billion, which, the model-changing universities can in theory subsequently reclaim from the EU, but the institutions claim that at this point they aren't even included in the tenders.