Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has reaffirmed his desire for MEPs from his Fidesz party to join the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) Group after the European elections, in an interview with the French magazine Le Point published on Thursday 30 May (see other news).
According to Mr Orbán, the main obstacle put forward until now to cooperation between the ECR and Marine Le Pen’s ‘Identity and Democracy’ (ID) Group was the presence in the latter of German extremists from the AfD, which is no longer the case since the AfD has been excluded (see EUROPE 13415/2).
“I hope that Giorgia Meloni and Marine Le Pen will find a way to negotiate immediately after the elections”, he stressed (see EUROPE 13417/27). “What we need is for the opinion of right-wing voters to be reflected and collected by the right, not for the EPP to continue to collect right-wing voters in order to deceive them and cooperate with the left”, he added.
He said that he saw the “progressive and liberal future of Europe”, championed in particular by French President Emmanuel Macron, as a threat. (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)