US philanthropist George Soros welcomed an EU court ruling on Tuesday that struck down a Hungarian law blamed for forcing the university he founded to largely leave Budapest, but said it had come "too late". "The ruling by the European Court of Justice that Hungary is in violation of European law is a victory for the fundamental values of the European Union," Soros wrote. But, he added, "the decision comes too late for CEU (Central European University)." Earlier on Tuesday, the European Court of Justice said a 2017 Hungarian law regulating higher education institutions was incompatible with EU legislation. The law was widely seen as a direct attack on the CEU by the right-wing government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The college was forced to abandon all but a small portion of its main campus in Budapest, where the 90-year-old Soros was born, and is now mostly located in Vienna. Soros said Tuesday that the university would not return. "We cannot return to Hungary because its prevailing laws don't meet the requirements of academic freedom," Soros said, adding that "the Hungarian government continues to trample EU law." He also noted that "the EU is currently debating how to ensure that its funds are used in accordance with the rule-of-law". "I call on the EU to make Hungary a test case," he went on. pmu/deh/jsk/er