During the afternoon of Monday 9 April, the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, wrote to the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, to congratulate him on his victory in the parliamentary elections of 8 April, which saw a clear victory for his party, Fidesz.
The Commission also stressed that it intended to work with Orbán to meet common challenges, whilst reiterating that the European Union is a union of democracy and values and that the defence of these values is a common duty of all member states, without exception, added Margaritis Schinas, a spokesperson to the institution.
The re-elected Prime Minister, a member of the EPP family won 48.48% of the votes, is expected to begin his fourth term at the head of the country, and the third consecutive one.
The other political groups that came in behind Fidesz are the far-right party Jobbik, which took 19.61% of the votes and 26 seats, the Socialist party in alliance with the Dialogue party, with 12.33% of the votes and 20 seats, the democratic coalition of former left-wing Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány, with 5.58% and 9 seats, and the LMP party (Politics Can Be Different), 6.92% and 8 seats.
The victory for the leader of Fidesz, whose election campaign focused on mass immigration and the Hungarian-American political rival George Soros, was all the higher as, unlike in recent elections, the Hungarians turned out in their droves on Sunday, with a turnout rate of 69.2%. His party has reportedly won 133 of the 199 seats in the Hungarian parliament, giving it the two-thirds majority it needs to push through the reforms it is calling for. It is this two-thirds majority that allowed Orbán's Hungary to launch controversial judicial reforms and a law on the media in Brussels in 2010, following his return to power.
The German leader of the EPP in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, congratulated Orbán on behalf of the group. On Twitter, he congratulated his EPP colleague on his clear victory and said that he was looking forward to working with him on the European challenges of the future. His fellow German, the leader of the S&D party in Parliament, Udo Bullmann, said that the EPP had a share of the responsibility in this vote of fear and of hatred and that it was concerned only about holding onto power. The fact that the EPP has never really reacted to Orban's far-right digressions proves this, he added.
The inversion of values and mass immigration called for by the EU have once again been rejected, said the leader of the French National Front, Marine Le Pen, one of the first to react. For her part, Beatrix von Storch, a member of the German Eurosceptic party AfD, hailed it as a bad day for the EU, but a good day for Europe. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)