Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told Hungarian public radio in an interview in Berlin that Manfred Weber, the head of the European People’s Party group in the EP, leads “a pro-war, pro-migration, anti-economy coalition”.
PM Orbán also said the openness of the world economy was a key issue for Hungary. The prime minister said the country’s living standards could not be kept up “solely from the market provided by ten million Hungarians”. “Isolation from the rest of the world would be tragic,” he added. PM Orbán, who is on a visit to Germany, said that the country was an ally in striving for an open economy. He cited automotive giant Mercedes-Benz as an example of the ties between Hungary and Germany. PM Orbán said the company was about to create 3,800-4,200 new jobs at its plant in Kecskemét, central Hungary, to produce new models and their parts. He said the German industry is currently changing, adding that Hungary will have a place in that technological change. A large part of those developments will be implemented in Hungary, creating thousands of jobs and taking a role in engineering and employee training in the process, PM Orbán said. “That’s the first thing I will ensure with the Chancellor,” Orbán said, referring to talks scheduled with Olaf Scholz later on Friday.
The prime minister added that as soon as the European Parliament’s left wing had announced that they had agreed at an informal EU summit this week, the European People’s Party, “which calls itself right-wing but moves towards the left with every alliance”, joined them, agreeing on a programme “that isn’t good for Hungary and differs from the way Hungarians think.” “This is a pro-war coalition that has banded together to speed up Europe’s slide into the war,” he said, adding that Germany was undergoing a level of militarisation unprecedented since the Second World War. Another programme of the coalition “is pro-migration; they are the ones implementing the Soros plan”, he said, adding that American financier George Soros had said in 2015 that one million migrants should be brought into Europe every year and that he would be happy to bankroll the project. Orbán warned that Europe’s population was being replaced, with the number of white Christian Europeans dwindling as the number of Muslims was growing radically.
Regarding competitiveness, including issues such as boosting industry, creating more jobs, higher wages and better living standards, the European left-wing coalition “is on the side of tax rises, so it isn’t market-friendly, which isn’t good for the European economy”, he said. The coalition created “is pro-war, pro-migration and anti-economy”, he said. Orbán said that rather than representing traditional, moderate, conservative and Christian democracy, the EPP was moving leftwards, hence a left-wing majority had formed in Europe. PM Orbán said the EPP had won the votes of moderate, right-wing voters in elections over the years but had gone on to form coalitions on the left, and so it was “pushing away” right-wing voters and “stealing” votes on the left, which he called “dishonorable”. Even though the balance of public opinion had shifted to the right, this was not currently reflected in the power dynamics in Brussels, he said, adding however that “indirect measures” such as forming alliances and agreements on the right would make it “ever stronger”. Orbán said the last few elections had presented a challenge to right-leaning Europeans, as many were reluctant to vote for the “robust and strengthening” right-wing formed by Italian, French and Hungarian parties, among others. More moderate Christian Democratic voters tended to vote for the EPP, he said. The EP elections were conducted in nation-states, he said, and had brought about a weakening of almost all non-right-wing governments, he added, pointing to the French and Belgian results as examples. The shift to the right “has happened” but did not lead to a change in power because the EPP “always takes its voters towards left, leading to a left-wing rather than a right-wing majority in Europe”, he said.