In December 2022, students and academics in Hungary were directly affected by a new development in the ongoing rule-of-law dispute between Hungary and the European Union, when the European Council decided to exclude 21 Hungarian universities from the Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe programmes. The decision primarily affected higher education institutions operated by public-interest trust foundations.

According to the EU, the governance structures of these universities raised concerns about political influence and conflicts of interest, as several boards of trustees included government officials or politically connected individuals. The EU argued that this situation posed risks to transparency and to the protection of EU financial interests. The freezing of EU funds had a significant impact on Hungarian higher education, as students at the affected universities lost access to Erasmus+ mobility opportunities, academic staff were excluded from teaching and training exchanges, and researchers were cut off from Horizon Europe projects and international research networks.


Although the Hungarian government introduced the Pannonia Programme to partially compensate for the loss of Erasmus+ funding, domestic initiatives cannot fully replace the international visibility, professional networks, and academic recognition that come with participation in EU programmes. In response to the exclusion, several universities, including the University of Debrecen and Semmelweis University, initiated legal proceedings in 2023, challenging the legality and proportionality of the EU’s measures. The institutions argued that the decision was collective and disproportionate, as it applied to all foundation-run universities without individual assessments, and that it indirectly restricted university autonomy and academic freedom.
While EU institutions requested that the cases be dismissed, the Court of Justice of the European Union allowed the proceedings to continue. In 2024, the Hungarian government addressed the EU’s concerns by proposing legislative amendments aimed at reducing conflicts of interest, including stricter asset declaration requirements and the exclusion of active politicians from university boards. However, the European Commission rejected these proposals, citing the continued influence of the government in appointing board members and the absence of sufficiently independent oversight mechanisms. As a result, the substantive hearing phase began in September 2025 in Luxembourg, where several Hungarian universities presented their arguments before the Court. A final judgment is expected in 2026, and its outcome is likely to set an important precedent for how the EU’s rule-of-law conditionality mechanism may be applied in the future, particularly in the fields of education and research.

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