Hungary: Education trade unions express their resentment about undemocratic governance practices
Published:
Sharing its member organisations’ resentment about the Hungarian authorities’ intransparent and undemocratic approach of submitting legislative proposals, ETUCE sent a support letter to FDSZ, PSZ and PDSZ, three of ETUCE’s member organisations in Hungary, on 7 April 2017.
The Hungarian authorities put forward the Bill T/ 14686 amending the national higher education act (Act CCIV of 2011 on National Higher Education) without any prior consultation with the national social partners to put an end to the functioning of the privately funded university - the Central European University (CEU) which mainly enrolls foreign students and employs mostly foreign education personnel.
In light of the passed amendments thousands of people took the streets of Budapest to demand the withdrawal of the bill. Alongside the threat that these changes pose to democracy and academic freedom in the country, ETUCE member organisations in Hungary fear that such act of abuse of power could mean that the government authorities can easily apply the same measures on publicly funded Hungarian higher education institutions, too.
The steps undertaken by the national officials explicitly show their unwillingness to take into account views and positions of national social partners and by these means raise great concerns about the functioning of the social dialogue in the country.
Strongly advocating for democratic governance practices and sustainable social dialogue, ETUCE supports its member organisations in their demands to the President of Hungary to seriously consider the concerns of the Hungarian education trade unions.