On Wednesday 8 May, the President of the European People's Party (EPP), Joseph Daul, mentioned a possible “exclusion” of the Fidesz party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán from the Christian Democratic family.
“If Orbán continues to do as he did in the last days, it will be exclusion or he will quit [the EPP] himself and that’s up to him”, Daul said after a meeting with Romanian NLP President Ludovic Orban.
Being seen with extreme right-wing leaders such as the leader of the Lega, Matteo Salvini, the Hungarian Prime Minister advocates collaboration between Christian Democrats and the hard right after the European elections to block the Liberals and the European left. He considers the latter to be in favour of unlimited immigration and opposed to the defence of Europe's Christian roots (see EUROPE 12246/26).
Mr Orbán also withdrew his support for the EPP Spitzenkandidate, the German Manfred Weber, whom he had supported during the internal primaries of the European Party at the Helsinki Congress in autumn 2018 (see EUROPE 12248/3).
On future appointments to senior European positions, Mr Daul will convey the following message to EPP leaders: “Come July we need to be focused on the top jobs. There's no way we're letting the populists make a mess of this. And for us, it is the presidency of the Commission that is the priority, for Manfred Weber”.
As for the political situation in Romania, the EPP President considered that the Social Democratic government was not pro-European and that its attacks on the independence of the country's judicial system were “unacceptable”.
Recent reforms of the Romanian government, such as the reduction of limitation periods for corruption cases or the amnesty of certain officials convicted of such acts, will be closely scrutinized at the European level and will be subject to referendum at the same time as the European elections in Romania (see EUROPE 12243/11). (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)