Karácsony: Budapest won’t back down, opposes Chinese university project

Budapest’s metropolitan and ninth district councils will not back down on plans to build a student quarter in the southern part of the city, Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony said on Facebook on Thursday as parliament debated the establishment of the local campus of China’s Fudan University in the same part of the city, Daily News Hungary reported.

Citing a joint statement by 12 economists containing arguments against the establishment of the Fudan University campus, Karácsony said the university would hurt the Hungarian economy because it would be financed from a loan from China on unfavourable terms.

According to Karácsony, Fudan University would be “bad for anyone who doesn’t want their tax forints to serve the Chinese Communist Party’s influence”.

“This project benefits China because it serves its own economic, political and covert interests,” Karácsony said, adding that the project could also benefit those linked to ruling Fidesz, “who will no doubt get a little something out of the Chinese revenues”.

The institution would also be bad for Budapest and specifically the ninth district because it would take space away from the planned student quarter, he added.

According to the mayor, it would also hurt Hungary’s higher education sector “by leading to unacceptably large wage gaps and devaluing Hungarian universities” and deprive Hungarian students of affordable housing. The university’s tuition fees would be unaffordable for “99 per cent of them,” he added. (Željko Trkanjec | EURACTIV.hr)