Juncker: Hungary’s ruling Fidesz doesn’t belong in EPP

‘Against lies there’s not much you can do,’ Commission president says of campaign against him.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party should leave the center-right European People’s Party, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Tuesday.

Juncker, a prominent member of the EPP, made the comments after the Budapest government launched a campaign specifically targeting the Commission president, accusing Brussels of pushing migration policies that “fundamentally threaten Hungary’s security.”

“Against lies there’s not much you can do,” Juncker said of the campaign. Speaking at a public meeting in Stuttgart, Germany, he said the EPP’s lead candidate in the European Parliament election, Manfred Weber, would be asking himself “if I need this voice” in the political group.

“The conservatives in Hungary in no way whatsoever represent Christian democratic values,” Juncker said. “I’m of the opinion that there’s no place [for them] in the European People’s Party.”

The EPP has faced calls to expel Fidesz from its ranks in the European Parliament, especially after MEPs passed a motion last year declaring that Hungary is at risk of breaching the EU’s core values, triggering a so-called Article 7 disciplinary process against Budapest.

In October last year, Juncker said that Orbán in particular “no longer has a place” in the conservative group.

“They didn’t vote for me in the European Parliament,” Juncker said Tuesday of Fidesz. “The far right didn’t either. I remember Ms. [Marine] Le Pen, she said ‘I’m not voting for you.’ I said: ‘I don’t want your vote.’ There are certain votes you just don’t want.”

This story has been updated.