Orbán receives support from EP: ‘He’s compatible with Europe’

The co-leader in the EP of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group(ECR) has called Prime Minister Viktor Orbán “compatible with Europe”, insisting that those who seek “to portray him as a demon” were using Orbán “as a tool to enforce a minority political position onto others”.

Orbán receives positive words

Addressing an ECR meeting in Subiaco, Italy, on Thursday, Nicola Procaccini said the Orbán was “democratically elected and he is member of the European Union”. He said Orbán “has his own views, but he has proved that he is compatible with Europe, because he voted to support Ukraine”.

Speaking about the upcoming EP elections in June, Procaccini said it would “bid farewell to the Ursula von der Leyen-led EC majority”, expecting “a strong sea change” compared to the situation five years ago.

Procaccini, who is group leader of the conservative Brothers of Italy party (FdI) in the EP, said “it can be known in advance that the next European Commission will be centre-right, irrespective of the EP ballot’s outcome, because the commissioners will have been nominated mostly by center-right European governments”.

The politician said that Valerie Hayer, president of the centrist liberal Renew Europe group in the European Parliament, on Thursday mounted “an aggressive attack” against the president and the EP group of the ECR, adding that Hayer’s words reflected fear over losing “a central role in the balance of European institutions”.

State secretary: EC wants to abolish the right of veto

The European Commission wants to abolish the right of veto, and instead of a full consensus, require only qualified majority voting, a state secretary of the prime minister’s office said on Thursday.

Csaba Dömötör said on Facebook that the proposal had not received much attention despite having great significance.

Certain areas have been earmarked for its application, including tax policy, social policy and foreign policy, he added.

“This is a grave proposal because it means that a decision could be made in Brussels setting corporate tax at above 9 percent … and they could even decide in Brussels what our position should be regarding the matter of the war,” he said.

A similar procedure was applied in the case of migrant settlement quotas, “and we protested in vain; they approved them in the end”.

Dömötör said attempts were being made to gradually take away powers from member countries, adding that this could be described as “concealed legislation”. The current proposal goes even further and wants to take away decision-making rights in several areas, he added.

Read also:

• Orbán: Christian forces are dominant in EU – UPDATE
• Government-close Századvég survey: Hungarians oppose sending European troops to Ukraine