EP elections – Socialists: Timmermans wants televised debate with Orbán

Lead candidate of the Party of European Socialists (PES) for European Commission president Frans Timmermans is preparing for a televised debate with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán initiated by news channel Euronews, opposition Socialist MEP István Ujhelyi said on Friday, calling on Orbán to accept the invitation.

Timmermans has been invited by the Socialists to attend their party congress next Saturday.

The debate could take place in the morning of that day, Ujhelyi told a press conference.

The direction that the European Union will take in the next few weeks is one of the most important questions for Europe today, Ujhelyi said.

One direction the “anti-European, populist forces, nationalists and neo-fascists” want to take is to set up a group that will be spearheaded by, among others, Orbán in the years ahead, he said. The other direction involves a vision for a social Europe which has been chosen by Timmermans and the European Socialists, he added.

Reaction

The prime minister’s press chief said in reaction that

“the prime minister has thanked the invitation but did not accept it”.

“It would be incorrect for the Hungarian prime minister to get involved in the election campaign of lead candidates Timmermans and Weber,” Bertalan Havasi said referring to Manfred Weber, the Spitzenkandidat of the European People’s Party.

Source: MTI