Open Letter to
José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission
Traian Bãsescu, President of Romania
Cãlin Popescu-Tãriceanu, Prime Minister of Romania

Academic rights in Romania

Your Excellences, fifteen years ago, when the revolution in 1989 demolished Nicolae Ceauºescu's dictatorship, a group of intellectuals expressed their concern about academic freedom and minority rights in Romania: they demanded the restoration of the Hungarian-language Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca / Kolozsvár. Now, the appeal is repeated because no progress has been made in achieving this aim.
This Hungarian-language university existed in Romania from 1945 till 1959 and its planned liquidation, by forcedly assimilating it into the mainly Romanian Babeº-Bolyai University, was one of Ceauºescu's personal political triumphs. Over the last fifteen years coequality in higher education could not be achieved and it is clear that the present structure does not serve the adequate training of Hungarian professionals in Romania. Although two private universities in Transylvania are sustained by the Hungarian government, Hungarians in Romania are heavily underrepresented in higher education.
There are successful examples of higher education in minority languages in Europe and elsewhere – e.g. Albanians in Macedonia, Catalans in Spain, Gagauz in Moldavia, Hungarians in Slovakia, Sámi in Norway, and Swedes in Finland who enjoy the benefits of a public (state-financed) university or universities in their own languages.
We understand Romania's pressing current problems but feel that in order to create a truly democratic society, the Romanian authorities should grant the minority rights mentioned above to the one and a half million strong Hungarian ethnic minority in Romania. We, therefore, urge that immediate steps be taken to re-establish the public Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca / Kolozsvár.

16th of February, 2006

Yours sincerely,

Atiyah, Michael F., Sir, Prof, Abel Prize Laureate and Fields Medalist, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, University of Edinburgh, UK
Gennes, Pierre-Gilles de, Prof, Nobel Laureate and Wolf Prize Laureate in Physics, Fellow of the Royal Society, Member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, Institut de France, Académie des Sciences, Collège de France and Institute Curie, Paris, France
Hubel, David H., Prof, Nobel Laureate, Member of the US National Academy of Sciences, Harvard University, Boston MA, USA
Kandel, Eric R., Prof, Nobel Laureate, Member of the US National Academy of Sciences, Columbia University, New York, USA
Kertész, Imre, Nobel Laureate, Budapest, Hungary
Klug, Aaron, Sir, Prof, Nobel Laureate, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, University of Cambridge, UK
Levitzki, Alexander, Prof, Wolf Prize Laureate, Member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Lovász, László, Prof, Wolf Prize Laureate, Member of The Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Microsoft Research, Redmond, USA
Oláh, George A., Prof, Nobel Laureate, Member of the US National Academy of Sciences, University of Southern California, USA
Wiesel, Elie, Prof, Nobel Laureate, Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Boston University, Massachusetts, USA
Witten, Edward, Prof, Fields Medalist, Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
* * *
Baltay, Charles, Prof, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Barabási, Albert-László, Corresponding Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA
Barrio, Rafael A., Prof, Member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico
Belmonte, Carlos, Prof, Member of the Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences, Director, Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante, Universidad Miguel Hernandez, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Sant Joan d´Alacant, Spain
Björklund, Anders, Prof, Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Lund University, Sweden
Bliss, Timothy V. P., Dr, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, MRC National Institute for Medical Research, London, UK
Bodmer, Walter, Sir, Prof, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, Oxford, UK
Castillejos, Raquel Pérez, Dr, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Castrén, Eero, Academy Professor, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Changeux, Jean-Pierre, Prof, Member, Institut de France, Académie des Sciences, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France
Cochran, Robert, Prof, Director of the Center for Arkansas and Regional Studies at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA
Collingridge, Graham, Prof, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, University of Bristol, UK
Costa, Erminio, Prof, Member of “Academia dei Lincei”, Rome, US National Academy of Sciences, University of Illinois, Chicago, USA
Cowey, Alan, Prof, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, University of Oxford, UK
Csernai, László P., Prof., Doctor Honoris Causa of Babeº-Bolyai University, Member of Academia Europaea, University of Bergen, Norway
Cull-Candy, Stuart, Prof, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, University College, London, UK
DeFelipe, Javier, Prof, Instituto Cajal, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, Spain
Dockray, Graham, Prof, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, University of Liverpool, UK
Eberle, Alex N., Prof, University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland
Graybiel, Ann, Prof, Member of the US National Academy of Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, USA
Griffiths, Gareth, Dr, Group Leader, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany
Grillner, Sten, Prof, Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
Hamingway, Richard J., Honorary Research Professor of Physics, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Hokfelt, Thomas, Prof, Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
Jessell, Thomas M., Prof, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, Member of the US National Academy of Sciences, Columbia University, New York, USA
Jones, Arwyn Tomos, Dr, Cardiff University, Wales, UK
Kaila, Kai, Academy Professor, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Klein, Eva, Prof, Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
Klein, George, Prof, Member of the European Academy of Sciences, Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
Korn, Henri, Prof, Member, Institut de France, Académie des Sciences, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France
Kossut, Malgorzata M., Prof, Member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Warsaw, Poland
Lerma, Juan, Prof, Deputy Director, Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, UMH, Alicante, Spain
Llinás, Rodolfo, Prof, Member of the US National Academy of Sciences, New York University, New York, USA
Lopes da Silva, Fernando, Prof, Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Lucas, Amand A., Prof, Member of the Royal Belgium Academy of Science, Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix, Namur, Belgium
Maffei, Lamberto, Prof, Vice-Presidnet of the Italian Academy of Sciences (Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei), Member of the European Academy of Sciences, Chairman of the Institute of Neurophysiology of the Italian National Research Council, Pisa, Italy
Mangano, Michelangelo L., Dr, Senior Scientist, PH-TH Department, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
Metspalu, Andres, Prof, IMCB/Estonian Biocentre, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
Moser, Edvard, Prof, Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and of the Royal Norvegian Society of Science and Letters, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
Nakanishi, Shigetada, Prof, Director, Osaka Bioscience Institute, Osaka, Japan
Nicoll, Roger, Prof, Member of the US National Academy of Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, USA
North, Alan R., Prof, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, Vice-President and Dean, University of Manchester, UK
Okada, Yoshio, Prof, Kobe Gakuin University, Japan
O'Mara, Shane, Prof, School of Psychology & Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
Ottersen, Ole Petter, Prof, Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, University of Oslo, Norway
Pan, Christoph, Prof, Head of the South Tirolean Institute for Ethnic Groups, Italy
Plane, David E., Dr, CERN, OPAL Experiment Spokesman, Geneva, Switzerland
Prochiantz, Alain, Prof, Member, Institut de France, Académie des Sciences, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
Pujol, Ángel Gabilondo, Prof, Rector Magnífico de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
Pungor, Ernő, Prof, Doctor Honoris Causa of Babeº-Bolyai University, Member of the European Academy of Sciences, Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society, Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary
Radda, George, Sir, Prof, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, University of Oxford, UK
Raska, Ivan, Prof, Institute of Cell Biology and Pathology, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
Ribeiro, Joaquim A, Prof, Inst. Farmacologia Neurociencias, Faculdade de Medicina, Univ. Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
Romo, Ranulfo, Prof, Member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences, Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences, Universidad Nacinal Autónoma de México, Mexico
Saarma, Mart, Prof, Member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Biotechnology, Univ. of Helsinki, Finland
Sarna, Tadeusz, Prof, Head, Department of Biophysics, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland
Schulz, Thomas F., Prof, Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists, Hannover Med. School, Germany
Singer, Wolf, Prof, Member of Max-Planck-Gesellshaft, Director, Max-Planck-Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Somogyi, Péter, Prof, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, University of Oxford, UK
Stanley, Eugene H., Prof, Member of US National Academy of Sciences, Director, Center for Polymer Studies, Boston University, Massachusetts, USA
Storm-Mathisen, Jon, Prof, Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, University of Oslo, Norway
Strata, Piergiorgio, Prof, Member of Academia Europaea, Director of Rita Levi Montalcini Center for Brain Repair, University of Torino, Italy
Strausfeld, Nicholas J., Prof, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA
Tenchini, Roberto, Prof, Instituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Pisa, Italy
Tubella, Imma, Prof, Rector, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
Ullrich, Axel, Prof, Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry, Director of the Department of Molecular Biology, Martinsried, Germany
Vigneron, Jean Pol, Prof, Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix, Namur, Belgium
Vizi, Szilveszter E., Prof, President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
Waessle, Heinz, Prof, Member, Max-Planck-Gesellshaft, Director, Max-Planck-Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Wagner, Albrecht, Prof, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Deutsches Electronen-Synchrotron, Hamburg, Germany
Weiskrantz, Larry, Prof, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, University of Oxford, UK
Winkler, Hans, Prof, Member, Academia Europaea, University of Innsbruck, Austria
Zerwas, Peter M., Prof, Deutsches Electronen-Synchrotron – DESY, Hamburg, Germany

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