Tamás Deutsch, MEP of the ruling Hungarian Fidesz party, has been sanctioned by the European People’s Party (EPP) by withdrawing some of his rights as a representative, but he will remain a member of the faction despite the letter signed by 40 faction members demanding his expulsion, the EPP said in a statement on Wednesday.
“We therefore decide to […] withdraw with immediate effect from Tamas Deutsch all rights to speaking time in plenary on behalf of the Group, to nominations as a (shadow) rapporteur or other formal positions on behalf of the Group as well as to any position or post belonging to the EPP Group,” the statement said.
As we reported earlier, a group of 40 EPP members led by Austrian Othmar Kas sent a letter to faction leader Manfred Weber demanding his expulsion for having likened the EPP leadership’s methods to those of the Gestapo and the communists.
While no details emerged from the meeting as to how the expulsion motion was changed to one of curtailing his faction rights, it was obviously the result of a compromise. The motion was adopted with a yes vote from 133 faction members out of the 142 present, with three abstentions and three no votes, presumably from the other Fidesz members.
“I am now a bigger enemy of mainstream European politics than Prime Minister Viktor Orbán!” Deutsch said in a live interview on Hungarian news television HírTV conducted during the meeting.
More importantly, the last two points of the faction’s statement also raised the possibility of excluding Fidesz itself — an issue that has been brewing for a year.
“[We] call on all Fidesz MEPs to reflect on whether their fundamental political convictions are still compatible with the values and core content of the EPP Group and to act consistently with these EPP core values or draw the necessary conclusions,” the statement said, adding, “[We] call on the EPP party to take a final decision on the membership of Fidesz immediately when health conditions allow this to happen.”
Title image: Fidesz MEP Tamás Deutsch. (source: European Parliament)
