Although university autonomy has always been at the centre of international and Hungarian academic research, in Hungary the issue of higher education autonomy has mostly been examined in the legal literature in connection with legislative changes. Starting from 2020, several Hungarian universities have also started to change their models, which also meant a change of maintenance. These changes generated sharp social, political and legal debates, one of the central issues of which was autonomy.

However, higher education autonomy was not only a dominant issue in the Hungarian narrative, as the debates gained new momentum when the issue was placed in an international context at the end of 2022. The justification for the unique distinction of the Hungarian system has also raised many questions in the academic literature, especially in the light of the international concept of autonomy and in comparison, with other European examples, such as the Dutch. This paper questions the justification of this distinction by analysing the international concept of autonomy and examines the Hungarian legal processes from the perspective of the management of the maintenance of autonomy and compares them with the Dutch example.