Hungary’s leader ‘copied extensively’

A DOCTORAL dissertation written by Hungary’s president directly copied several pages from one publication and borrowed heavily from another one, an investigating committee has found.

But the panel yesterday noted that Pal Schmitt had identified these publications in the bibliography of his 1992 dissertation, and it did not use the word “plagiarism” in a three-page summary of its findings.

Instead, the panel shifted blame toward the University of Physical Education, saying it should have noticed and called attention to Mr Schmitt’s “unusually extensive” copying.

The findings drew the ire of Hungary’s main opposition parties, who demanded that Mr Schmitt resign as president.

The governing right-wing Fidesz party – which Mr Schmitt once helped lead as its vice president and which backed his election in 2010 – said it now “considers the matter closed”.

The magazine HVG uncovered Mr Schmitt’s copying in January and first raised the plagiarism issue.

The five-member investigative committee at Budapest’s Semmelweis University, to which Schmitt’s former university now belongs, included four university professors and a lawyer.