Hungary: Foreign universities may get time to meet rules

BUDAPEST, Hungary – Hungary’s justice minister says the government will ask parliament to give foreign universities more time to comply with a new legal provisions requiring them to provide educational activities in their home countries if they are doing so in Hungary.

The requirement has been mostly viewed as targeting Central European University, a Budapest school founded by Hungarian-American financier George Soros. CEU is accredited in New York state, but does not serve students there.

Justice Minister Laszlo Trocsanyi said Friday he is confident that extending the compliance deadline by a year — until Jan. 1, 2019 — would allow all affected institutions to fulfil the new conditions.

The Hungarian Academy of Sciences has called for allowing CEU to continue operating in Budapest. Prime Minister Viktor Orban considers the liberal Soros an ideological foe.