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Governmentinfo 101: PM Orbán's "successful, fruitful and useful" meeting with Juncker, the Soros plan and CEU

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had a "successful, fruitful and useful" working dinner with Jean-Claude Juncker and V4 leaders on Wednesday

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had a "successful, fruitful and useful" working dinner with Jean-Claude Juncker and V4 leaders on Wednesday.

János Lázár, the minister heading the Prime Minister’s Office, said the PM was of the opinion that the V4 countries expressed concordant views on every issue, and they managed to demonstrate to the president of the Commission that this is a close, effective and successful cooperation.

Hungary and the V4 partners stressed that there cannot be double standards between the western and eastern member states. The application of double standards vis-a-vis the central European countries is a daily practice on the Commission’s part: "what is allowed in the West is forbidden in the East”.

PM Orbán also raised the issue of the Ukrainian education legislation, and asked Juncker to take firm action on the matter so that students learning in Hungarian can continue to have the rights they once had.

The minister also highlighted news reports that reveal György Soros had donated a considerable proportion of his wealth, some 18 billion USD, to his foundation.

The minister said that the financial conditions of the "Soros plan” are secured and this money will "start working everywhere”, in the whole of Europe, and will support civil society communities and parties which want to open the borders of Europe and to organise immigration.

Lázár said the most important goal of central European governments is to avoid mandatory resettlement, and to preserve the stability of their established social relations. He also said that Hungary does not concern itself with how other member states organise their communities or how they invite immigrants into their countries, but at the same time, they themselves have to foot the resulting bill.

After speaking about the "Soros plan", the minister also discussed foreign universities. He said it would be high time for CEU to decide what they want as the university requested an extension of deadlines laid down in the higher education legislation, and Parliament yielded to this request. "We may observe political protests once again," the minister added.

Foreign universities operating in Hungary will be required to meet the conditions of the higher education law by 1 January 2019 instead of the beginning of 2018, the minister confirmed. The government expects everyone to meet the statutory requirements during the available time, he concluded.