Manfred Weber and the European People's Party (EPP) have again criticized the Hungarian government, saying Hungary needs better leadership to fight corruption and bring the country closer to Europe. Weber and his team posted a message on X with a picture of a little girl holding a Hungarian flag, stressing that it is time to "revive Hungary's European future". Although the picture has since been removed from the EPP's official social media pages, it still appears in the search engine.
What is still visible, however, is a picture post on Facebook from a week ago of Viktor Orban walking out in front of a red background, with the caption "Time to go.".
PM Viktor Orban said that these actions are similar to the events of 2022, when foreign forces also tried to intervene in Hungarian politics. Manfred Weber, who hates Hungary, had previously also said that it was time for the current government to leave, stressing that the EPP's goals include welcoming migrants and reducing the tax burden on multinational companies in Hungary.
According to the PM, the EPP envisages a Europe that is detrimental to Hungary, and the EPP's aim is to try to control the country's government decisions from abroad.
In his regular weekly interview on Kossuth Radio, the Hungarian prime minister said that the People's Party's aim is for Hungary to let in migrants, enter into the war and abolish the child protection system. Mr Orban said that although Brussels is penalizing Hungary, this is actually less of a burden than letting the migrants in.
In countries where they're compelled to let them in, they can't provide the kind of economic policies that we're preparing. We are now being penalized from Brussels, but that is still less of a financial burden than if we would let them in,
he stated in the interview.
The PM also noted that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European People's Party Chairman Manfred Weber are seeking a change of government in Hungary.
This was underscored by how, during the plenary debate in Strasbourg, they referred to Tisza Party chief Peter Magyar as a political figure of the future, while he, the sitting prime minister, was referred to as a representative of the past.
The European People's Party put all their eggs in one basket. We left them, because what they demanded of Hungary was untenable. Now they've found a party that has joined and they want to put it in power. They want to have it implement the program that Hungary rejected because it would be bad for the people here. Even in Brussels there's is Hungarian internal politics,
Viktor Orban pointed out.
"A frontal attack on Hungarian sovereignty was taking place at the EU summit, and Brussels is presumably trying to intervene in yet another area of Hungarian domestic politics," the state secretary for international communications of the PM's Office told Kossuth Radio's Sunday morning news program. As Magyar Nemzet reported earlier, Zoltan Kovacs said that at the summit, Prime Minister Viktor Orban wanted to discuss the program of the Hungarian EU presidency and the adoption of a competitiveness pact, but instead there was a "frontal attack on Hungary's sovereignty and government".
According to the state secretary, the Brussels institutions and bureaucrats will also take positions on such Hungarian party-politics issues in the future, that they have so far not tried to do.
Cover photo: EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European People's Party Chairman Manfred Weber (Photo: AFP)
