George Soros has accused the Hungarian president Viktor Orbán of building a “mafia state”, as he warned the fate of the Central European University he founded still hangs in the balance. The Hungarian-born financier and philanthropist said he was confident the university’s defence of its freedom would ultimately “bring the slow-moving wheels of justice into motion”, but said it and other organisations he had backed were still at risk under the Orbán-led government.

Hungary’s populist prime minister has introduced tough measures for the registration of foreign-registered universities that could force the closure of the CEU, one of the top academies in the region. Thousands of people protested in Budapest in April against a bill seen by many as targeting the university.

In a wide-ranging speech on European integration, where he recalled how his Jewish family fled the Nazi occupation of Hungary, Soros hit back at Orbán for casting him as a scheming “currency speculator” in an “unrelenting propaganda campaign”.(guardian)…[+]