Fidesz politicians have called on Tamás Soproni, the mayor of Budapest’s 6th district, to openly back or reject his Momentum party’s stance on European Union funding for higher education and research programmes. MEP Tamás Deutsch and Balázs Norbert Kovács, the head of Fidesz’s 6th district division, said in an open letter on Sunday that, “at the shameful initiative of Momentum MEPs Anna Donáth and Katalin Cseh”, the leftist majority of the European Parliament decided to “uphold the unlawful infringement of the rights of Hungarian students, researchers and professors” as they remain excluded from EU higher education and research development programmes.
Soproni, the only Momentum member serving as a mayor and a member of the party board, should make it clear whether he stands by the “shameful and gravely discriminative stance” or rejects it, Deutsch and Kovács said. They also called on Soproni to forego “parroting … dollar left mantras” on concerns about the rule of law. “Supposing but not allowing that those concerns were based on fact, stripping Hungarian students, professors and researchers of participation in the Erasmus+ and Horizon programmes remains unlawful,” the open letter said.