Weber tells Orbán to end anti-Brussels campaign and apologize

‘All options are on the table,’ says senior German MEP.

Manfred Weber, the frontrunner to be next European Commission president, said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán must end his anti-Brussels campaign and apologize for his actions.

His comments came a day after four national parties within the European People’s Party called for Orbán’s Fidesz to be expelled or suspended from the center-right bloc.

“All options are on the table. We’re talking about this now within the EPP,” Weber told Spiegel. “With his comments and his poster campaign, Viktor Orbán has seriously damaged the EPP. So I expect him to apologize and end the campaign.”

Last month, the Hungarian government unveiled a taxpayer-financed campaign attacking Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, along with the Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros, and accusing officials in Brussels of plotting to impose migration policies that go against Hungary’s interests.

“Viktor Orbán is moving in the wrong political direction,” said Weber, a German MEP. “When it comes to questions of proper behavior or fundamental questions of democratic order, he has many similarities to Matteo Salvini from [Italy’s] League or to the [Polish] PiS chair Jarosław Kaczyński. This is not my way, and neither is it the EPP’s way.”

Weber has been an ally of Orbán in the past, though in the fall Weber voted in favor of a European Parliament resolution to open disciplinary proceedings against Hungary for allegedly breaching core EU values. In initiating the so-called Article 7 proceedings, the Parliament cited concerns about judicial independence, corruption, freedom of expression, academic freedom, the rights of minorities and migrants, and other issues.

Three parties on Thursday signed a letter to EPP President Joseph Daul asking for Fidesz’s expulsion — the Flemish Christian Democrats (CD&V), the Walloon Humanist Democratic Center (cdH) and Luxembourg’s Christian Social People’s Party (CSV). A fourth party, Portugal’s CDS-People’s Party, said it wrote to the EPP presidency, calling for Fidesz to either be expelled or suspended.