Six Hungarian universities have decided to lodge legal complaints against the European Union for freezing funds for the Erasmus programme.

Over €12 billion of EU funds for Hungary were frozen back in December 2022, including €6.3 billion under the rules of law mechanism and €5.8 billion in post-Coronavirus recovery funding.

Taking into account the decision of the EU to freeze funds and not allow new grants to be awarded to universities, the assets of which were transferred to board-led foundations, the six universities, among which is also Semmelweis University and the University of Debrecen, decided to take legal action, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.

Semmelweis University asked the European Union Court of Justice to require the EU to no longer apply strict rules for it or overturn the decision to freeze the funds completely. The University further claimed that the use of EU funding was independent and did not include any members of the government or other related people.

The University of Debrecen also said that the decision to freeze the funding for Hungarian universities is in conflict with the core values that the EU has and stressed that none of its board members has political roles leading to conflicts of interest.

Despite the EU deciding to cut funding for Hungarian universities last year, the Hungarian Ministry of Culture and Innovation said earlier in January that the Erasmus+ programme would continue.

Through an official statement, the Ministry said that even though the Commission of the EU made a decision regarding public interest asset management foundations, the decision does not affect the student exchange programmes.

“Hungary has fulfilled all its commitments and therefore refuses to accept the European Commission’s discriminative decision to exclude public interest asset management foundations carrying out public duties and the universities they manage from direct EU tenders,” the Ministry said earlier this year.