Hankó, who arrived to Brussels to attend a meeting of EU education ministers, said the scheme would offer opportunities for around 8,000 students, educators and researchers to participate in exchange programmes.

It will initially cover institutions that have undergone a government-funded reform and are run by foundations, he added.

Tempus will first call applications from universities on Jan 15 so students can submit their applications in March and participate in exchange programmes — including exchanges with non-European universities — from autumn next year, Hankó said.

He expressed hope that the new programme would help achieve the government’s goals that at least one Hungarian university would be among the top 100 universities in the world, three Hungarian universities would be ranked among the top 100 European universities, and the number of students participating in international exchange programmes would double by 2030.

On the matter of the suspension of Erasmus scholarship funding for Hungary, Hankó said the government had sent its latest proposal to the European Commission around two weeks ago, but “as usual”, the answer had not arrived on time.

“The Commission should know that in the Erasmus system, Hungarian universities had until February 23 to apply, and nine months are available to conclude the funding contracts, the deadline for which is today, but of course the Commission can decide to postpone this. We are negotiating; we trust that the Commission will accept the proposals we made in response to their comments, in order to ensure adequate protection of EU resources, and that they will not follow their earlier tactic of always introducing new criteria, which has only served to delay the process so far,” he said.