The EPP political assembly confirmed on the evening of Monday 3 February that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz will remain suspended from the political family for at least one year. Since the status quo has been upheld--as the president of the EPP, Donald Tusk, had already indicated last week (see EUROPE 12414/6), the circumstances of the Fidesz MEPs in the EPP group has not changed either, and these 13 members are therefore not suspended.
The EPP also decided in its Political Assembly on Monday to hold a new congress on the values of the Christian Democratic Party that will once again take stock of the case of the Hungarian Prime Minister’s party, if by then the Hungarian has not decided to leave the EPP family of his own accord, as he has sometimes suggested. This congress will be held in early 2021.
The president of the EPP retained the principle of extending this suspension, which was imposed last March (see EUROPE 12218/8), in view of the party’s inability to reach an agreement on the Orbán ‘case’.
Thus, while the Finnish Kokoomus family argued for expulsion, this option did not achieve a majority among party members. On Twitter, a representative of the Finnish right wing explained that the Hungarian and his family should be expelled because “Fidesz is in violation of the values and principles of the EPP”.
The French, Spanish, and Italians are among the families that have rejected the principle of exclusion. This formalisation of Fidesz’s continued suspension took place while Viktor Orbán was in Brussels on the same day. He met with the president of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, whom he supported when the heads of the European Commission were appointed and with whom he discussed the European budget, told his communication service. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)