Orban sets a final warning. He threatens to leave the European People’s Party

• Last week, Manfred Weber and other EPP leaders drafted new rules on the procedure for suspending individual party members.
• “I would like to inform you that Fidesz will leave the EPP if the clauses agreed on February 26 at the meeting of the section leaders are voted on and implemented,” Orban wrote.
• Some EPP members opposed to Fidesz have not been so intimidated by the gift of Orban’s letter to Weber – they hope the Hungarian prime minister will keep his word and leave the faction
• You can read the original article on the POLITICO.eu website

Orban sent a special letter to Manfred Weber, the leader of the EPP, the largest body in the European Parliament. Last week, Weber and other EPP leaders drafted new rules for the practice of suspending individual party members. It should impose a fine on the whole party, but as before – not on an MEP.

Fidesz, Victor Orban’s party, was suspended from the EPP in March 2019. However, despite party leaders trying to remove them, he still belongs to the faction in the 11 MEPs EP.

In a letter to Weber, Fidesz said he did not want to wait for a decision on the new suspension rules, but rather to leave the division. “I would like to inform you that Fidesz will leave the EPP if the subdivisions agreed upon on February 26 at the meeting of the section leaders are voted on and implemented,” Orban wrote.

Katalin Novak, the minister for family affairs and Pittsburgh’s vice-president, accused some EPP members of engaging in “unacceptable” internal struggles at one time that “Europe is fighting to save lives” in the COVID-19 epidemic. Nobak posted an excerpt of Orban’s letter on Twitter. “Someone in the EPP is busy expelling Fidesz from the board, they don’t have the right majority for it, so they make special rules for it,” he wrote.

MEP from Austria And Othmer Karas, vice president of the European Parliament, said that the threat of urbanization should not be tolerated. – We will not allow Orban to threaten us. As planned, the EPP will introduce new rules, he said.

Some EPP members opposed to Fidesz called Orban’s letter to Weber not so threatening as a gift – they hoped the Hungarian prime minister would keep his word and leave the faction if the new rules came into force – all indicating it. They need a two-thirds majority to be added at the next committee meeting on Wednesday.

If Fidesz leaves the EPP, it will still be the largest faction in the European Parliament. It has 187 MEPs, followed by the Social Democrats Group – 145. There are 705 MEPs in the European Parliament.

Editing: Carol Wozniacki