The head of the Prime Minister’s Office, Gergely Gulyás has highlighted how the Hungarian government will not budge on the issue of migration.
According to MTI, he said that whereas the government had managed to compromise with the EC on a number of issues and occasions, “the protection of the external border is not up for debate.”
Gulyás said Fidesz will back the new European Commission when the European Parliament votes on Ursula von der Leyen’s team next week.
In regards to the European People’s Party, Gulyás said the center-right grouping needed to regain its strength and return to its fundamental values.
Commenting on the EPP’s election of Donald Tusk as its new leader in Zagreb on Wednesday, Gulyás said Tusk’s speech had contained “nothing objectionable except his criticism concerning the protection of the [EU’s] external borders and border fences”.
Gulyás argued that Europe could not be defended from illegal migration without effective border protections. He said Tusk “needs to decide which direction to choose”.
He concluded that Fidesz needs a conservative, center-right democratic alliance to be part of. “Fidesz, as the grouping’s most successful member, will be at its service” if the EPP chose such a direction, he added. He said Fidesz was open to talks with the EPP, adding that Tusk was welcome to sit down with PM Viktor Orbán.
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