The European University reopened the doors for the prosecutor’s office – Kommersant

The prosecutor, with the involvement of Rosobrnadzor specialists, began an unscheduled on-site inspection of the European University in St. Petersburg (EUSPb). It is held “at the request of a citizen” and will last until June 13, the university said. The inspectors are interested in the documentation on the educational process, including the final qualifying works of the masters and the topics of the work of graduate students.

The unscheduled prosecutor’s review, which began on Wednesday at EUSP, is not an extraordinary event for a university that has attracted the close attention of supervisory authorities throughout its history.

In February 2008, 52 violations of fire safety standards became the official version of the temporary closure and suspension of the license for the educational activities of the university. Unofficially, the leadership of the educational institution associated these events with politics. According to the rector’s office, the conflict was started by “ill-wishers of the presidential candidate Dmitry Medvedev.” Academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences sent an open letter to Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev. The university resumed work after a month and a half.

It should be noted that a year before, in 2007, the university received a grant from the European Commission in the amount of €670,000 for the implementation of the Interregional Electoral Support Network program. Within its framework, it was planned to train election observers in “details of Russian electoral legislation.”

Professor Grigory Golosov (currently Dean and Professor of the Faculty of Political Science) was appointed as the project manager. The program was criticized by State Duma deputies from United Russia, who saw “direct foreign interference” and a violation by the educational institution of licensed activities. Soon the university abandoned the plans. The grant for the implementation of the project was received by the NGO “Center “Geliks””, and Mr. Golosov remained the head.

At the beginning of 2016, the university did not pass the inspection of Rosobrnadzor. The Inspectorate has suspended state accreditation (it allows issuing diplomas of the sample established by the Ministry of Education and Science and guaranteeing students a deferment from conscription service). By May, the university had secured the removal of restrictions in court.

However, already in July, the Prosecutor General’s Office, at the request of the then deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, Vitaly Milonov (now a State Duma deputy), initiated another check by Rosobrnadzor. For several months, the university eliminated violations (this time 120 were identified) and provided reports that the control body accepted only partially. As a result, at the end of the year, Rosobrnadzor announced the suspension of the university’s license, banning the university from engaging in educational activities. The university was given a week to “transfer” students to other universities. The decision to cancel the license in early 2017 was made by the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region. In total, in 2016 EUSP experienced unscheduled inspections of ten government agencies (in addition to two from Rosobrnadzor).

In December 2016, the authorities of St. Petersburg unilaterally terminated the lease agreement for the Small Marble Palace (Kusheleva-Bezborodko Palace), where the university has been located since 1995. Smolny claimed that the EUSP administration had violated the terms of use of the historical building: it made redevelopment, installed windows and air conditioners. The university intended to use private funds to implement a project to adapt the palace to modern needs worth 2.2 billion rubles, of which 670 million rubles. It was planned to spend on the restoration of the historical part of the building. Despite the support of numerous experts on cultural heritage, in August 2017 the university lost the rights to the building. In 2018, EUSP handed over the palace to Smolny, and moved to a rented building nearby, on Gagarinskaya Street. Students returned to the university only in October 2018 after several refusals to issue a license from Rosobrnadzor. A year later, EUSP returned state accreditation for a period of six years.

The prosecutor’s check, which began on May 17, is being carried out with the involvement of specialists from Rosobrnadzor at the request of an “unknown citizen,” the university said.

“The commission checks the documentation on the educational process, including the final qualifying works of the masters and the topics of the work of graduate students,” Kommersant was told at the educational institution. “The university is working as usual – classes are being conducted according to the schedule, all the usual events are taking place.” The events will last until June 13, representatives of the university added.

EUSP does not comment on what this time the interest of the inspectors may be connected with. “I suppose this may be due to the fact that the university is one of the centers of free academic thought, many teachers with liberal views work here,” suggested Boris Vishnevsky (Yabloko), a member of the St. Petersburg parliament. When it comes to a non-state university, where to a certain extent there is dissent and free-thinking necessary for academic science, this cannot cause delight in the authorities.”

Nadezhda Yarmula, St. Petersburg