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Central Europe
December 7, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 18
in 1988 from the Soros Foundation to study political science in Oxford along with a number of his college peers now in the Fidesz party. The Hungarian-born Jewish businessman helped the establishment of the liberal, anti-communist Fidesz (Alliance of Young Democrats), set up by a dozen university students in 1988.
Orban stepped up his anti-immigration rhetoric and in parallel attacks on Soros in the wake of the migration crisis in 2015.
The Hungarian government has repeatedly accused the billionaire, who has spent millions backing organisations that promote liberal democracy and open borders in Europe, of plotting to destabilise the continent by allowing millions of migrants to settle there.
Large billboards were a frequent presence throughout the country ahead of the April general election and advertisements on radio, television and the internet all had the same message: Soros is organising mass migration to Hungary
and the rest of Europe and it must be stopped. The Hungarian-born businessmen, who fled the country in 1947 was depicted as a public enemy.
The right-wing conservative government began its legal attack against the university in the spring of 2017 when it amended the higher education act. Observers said it was specifically targeted at the CEU. It was clear from the start that the univer- sity was not welcome in Hungary. The campaign against CEU fitted well into Budapest’s intimida- tion campaign against NGOs and migrants.
The CEU announced in September that it can- celled a study programme for refugees because of a new law that threatened to levy a fine on institutions “supporting migration”. It withdrew its gender study programmes after a government ban.
Despite protests, international calls to revoke the contested educational act and an ongoing infringement procedure by the European Union, the government's stance hardened further after its third straight supermajority win in April.