UPDATE 1-Soros university says it being forced out of Hungary, mulls move

Hungary's Central European University, a graduate school founded by U.S. financier George Soros, said it was being forced out of the country by the nationalist government and would switch to enrolling new students in Vienna if it did not get guarantees of academic freedom by Dec. 1.

A statement by the university said the right-wing government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban had kept it in legal limbo for more than a year by failing to reach a formal agreement on its status.

"We cannot operate legally in Hungary as a free, U.S. accredited institution. We are being forced out of a country that has been our home for 26 years," CEU President and Rector Michael Ignatieff told a news conference.

The announcement followed months of attacks by the Orban government which has made the demonisation of Hungarian-born financier Soros, who promotes liberal causes through his charities, a central part of its right-wing policies.

The government accuses the CEU, which offers graduate-level courses taught in English and is frequently ranked as the top university in Hungary, of operating without full legal compliance.

Orban regularly accuses Soros of plotting to destroy European civilization by flooding the continent with immigrants. Soros says his support for refugees is one part of a wider humanitarian mission to back open societies around the globe.

The Hungarian government's anti-Soros campaign forced his charitable Open Society Foundations to leave Hungary earlier this year.

The statement by the university said it would enrol new students in U.S. degrees at its Vienna campus in 2019 if its legal status in Hungary was not resolved by Dec. 1, though it would try to maintain as much research and educational activity in Budapest as possible.