Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is set to meet European People’s Party President Donald Tusk for an EPP showdown in March.
According to the prime minister’s press secretary Bertalan Havasi, PM Orbán will meet with Tusk on the sidelines of an EU summit on March 26 and 27.
Sources confirm that PM Orbán is still waiting for a response from Tusk after he called for a debate within the EPP on the future of the grouping in a memo on Tuesday.
In the memo, PM Orbán said that “the EPP was resolutely pro-democracy, anti-communist, pro-market, anti-Marxist, pro-nation, in favor of building the Union on the basis of nations, pro-subsidiarity, anti-bureaucracy, Christian-inspired, and a committed representative and devotee of the Christian family model and the matrimony of one man and one woman.”
“The EPP represented these values courageously, proudly and successfully under the pressure of its opponents, fashion trends and the left-wing liberal media majority,” the prime minister said. He added that by now “everything has changed”.
According to MTI, PM Orbán lamented what he saw as the grouping’s failure to represent Christian inspirations “if there are any left”. He recommended that the party alliance should modify its strategic guideline and return to the heritage of Wilfried Martens.
The prime minister wrote that the EPP should support its member parties in cooperating and building coalitions not only with the left, but also with the right-wing in their countries. He added that besides centrist forces, representatives of the Christian right-wing should also be given a seat at the table.
Meanwhile, party vice-president Katalin Novák confirmed on Wednesday that Fidesz is still waiting for a response to PM Orbán's thought-provoking missive from both the leaders of the EPP and its member parties.
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