During the afternoon of Wednesday 2 May, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was in Brussels for a meeting with the leader of the European People’s Party (EPP), Joseph Daul, and the leader of the EPP Group in Parliament, Manfred Weber, in order to discuss various EU-related controversies in Hungary.
In Lyons, on 12 April, several days after the Fidesz leader’s win in the Hungarian elections, Daul and Weber had said they would meet with Prime Minister Orban in coming weeks (see EUROPE 12000) to discuss the possible “red lines” that must not be crossed. Above all, it was a question of the law on foreign universities or laws against Georges Soros.
On Wednesday morning, EPP party sources steering the meeting had refused to give the agenda of the planned meeting, simply stating that Daul is in regular contact with Orban and that the latter had already come to Brussels last April.
At that time, the EPP had in fact already held a debate on the “Viktor Orban case” and had raised the question of opening disciplinary proceedings against him. The party had dismissed the hypothesis of exclusion from the EPP but had admonished the leader of Fidesz who was invited to come within the European track and put a damper on his rhetoric on “illiberal democracy”. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)