The European People's Party (EPP) is not in a position to continue its work on the membership of the Fidesz party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán because its committee of wise men - Belgian Herman Van Rompuy, Austrian Wolfgang Schlüssel, German Hans Gert Pöttering - cannot find a solution on how to proceed.
The EPP made this observation in a statement issued on Tuesday 9 June.
The chairman of this Committee of Wise Men, former President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy, reacted to an interview with Mr Schlüssel accusing current EPP President Donald Tusk of wanting to stop the work. This is "a bad presentation of events", the Belgian reacted. According to him, the committee was unable to reach agreement on the political situation in Hungary and the consequences that must follow, even though "the work of the last few months has clearly shown that there are problems to be dealt with, on the rule of law, the media, education and science".
While the Wise Men considered that there had been no progress since the suspension of Fidesz from the EPP Party in March 2019, they do not know how to respond to this.
"So I was the one who asked the committee to stop its work", Van Rompuy said.
In February, the EPP had not managed to settle the issue of the exclusion of Fidesz and had extended the suspension at least until a next congress at the beginning of 2021 (see EUROPE 12418/17). (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)