Seven national parties affiliated with the European People's Party (EPP) from five different member countries sent a letter to the President of the European Party, Frenchman Joseph Daul, calling for the exclusion of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz formation.
Consequently, the minimum has been reached to launch an exclusion procedure against the Hungarian leader, or at least to put this issue on the EPP agenda, which should be the case on 20 March, before the Spring European Summit. According to the EPP statutes, a decision to exclude or suspend may be taken as soon as the minimum threshold is reached or if the request is made by the President of the Party himself.
This initiative was launched on Thursday 28 February by three national parties in the Benelux, the Belgian CD&V and CDH parties and the Luxembourg Christian Social People's Party (CSV), followed by the Portuguese CDS party. Two Swedish parties, the Krisdemokraterna and the Nya Moderaternam, followed on Friday 1 March.
The same goes for the Finnish Kokoomus party. In a letter that was made public, he recalled that, in November 2018 in Helsinki at the EPP Annual Congress, a resolution on European values and safeguarding of democracy had been adopted (see EUROPE 12133).
Its President, Petteri Orpo, calls for the exclusion of Mr Orbán from the formation, for which “serious” reasons exist suggesting that it violates the values and principles of the EPP. According to him, Fidesz crosses the “red line” that was drawn and did not respect the commitments that they made jointly.
As far as the French Party The Republicans is concerned, nothing has yet been initiated and the attitude for the time being is to follow developments, bearing in mind that the EPP needs letters from seven parties from five different Member States to formally include this exclusion request on the agenda of a forthcoming meeting, potentially 20 March, before the European Summit.
See the letter from the Kokoomus party: http://bit.ly/2EGsPNy. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)