Yesterday Népszava’s correspondent in Brussels, Katalin Halmai, was present at an informal meeting between a small group of journalists and Manfred Weber, where the Spitzenkandidat told them point blank that “if Viktor Orbán again returns to his provocative, anti-Juncker or anti-Timmermans campaign, then the president of the ‘council of wisemen,’ Herman van Rompuy, will prepare his recommendations accordingly.”
Were we to take Weber’s words seriously, the three gentleman who, according to the Hungarian edition of Euronews, have already met once could save themselves a lot of time and trouble by simply writing the report that would lead to Fidesz’s expulsion from the European People’s Party. Because Viktor Orbán’s speech, signaling the official start of Fidesz’s EP campaign, left no doubt in anyone’s mind that it will be provocatively antagonistic, not just against the European People’s Party and its leaders but also against the European Union.
I’m fairly certain that Weber knows that the final outcome of this confrontation will be a parting of the ways and that he is only stalling for time. During the conversation he talked about his efforts to ensure Central European University’s continued existence, but, let’s face it, his efforts on the university’s behalf have not borne fruit so far and, given Orbán’s present mood, they are unlikely to produce any tangible results in the future.
Weber emphasized that “if within a couple of weeks or a month there is no progress, then we can be sure that Herman van Rompuy will take care of things. No one should doubt that the expulsion of Fidesz is still on the table.” Weber threw cold water on Viktor Orbán’s grandiose plans to transform EPP into a caucus in his own image when he said that the conservative political group’s future will remain in the hands of its leading politicians, like Angela Merkel and others, including himself.
The Hungarian media expected Orbán to talk tough today, but his speech exceeded even their worst expectations. Orbán pretty well burned his bridges behind him by opening an anti-EU campaign. In full knowledge of the consequences, he declared war on the European Union’s current and possible future president and declared in the name of the Hungarian people that they are fed up with the European Union.
Let me start with his attacks on the European Union. Viktor Orbán believes that the Hungarian election results, which he assumes will heavily favor Fidesz, will demonstrate Hungarians’ general dissatisfaction with the European Union. To prove his point, he cited some most likely heavily slanted results from polls conducted by the Nézőpont Intézet, which is financed by the Hungarian government. Although independent polls year after year show overwhelming support for the European Union, in Orbán’s alternate reality a Fidesz victory will mean the authorization to wage war, on the side of Matteo Salvini, whom he mentioned by name, against “Brussels.”
Orbán also said that in the last five years Hungary received very little help from Brussels; in fact, Brussels made Hungary weaker, not stronger. This is an astonishingly impertinent statement from a man whose country, without EU assistance, would be struggling economically. At the very least it wouldn’t have so many useless football stadiums and rich Fidesz politicians.
The current leaders of the European Union, he contended, want to eliminate national cultures, Christianity itself, and even destroy nations as such. The result will be a United States of Europe in which Hungarians will no longer be Hungarians. All these plans of the European Union must be stopped. He indicated that he will be one of those who will fight against the European Union. As he put it: “I would never have believed that I would fight alongside Romania against the West,” from which I gather that he is now also working with the thoroughly corrupt Romanian socialists against the EU.
Two of the enemies: the palsy-walsy Juncker and Timmermans
He spent relatively little time on the EPP-Fidesz conflict, brushing it aside as merely an annoying nuisance. Weber, on the other hand, will be Orbán’s next Soros if he ever becomes president of the European Commission. Orbán referred to Weber as “the Bavarian” who has become a Brusselite Bavarian. A true Bavarian from Munich wouldn’t insult Hungarians because these insults, he explained, are not against him or Fidesz but against the Hungarian nation. He can’t understand how Weber can cozy up to Frans Timmermans, who is so palsy-walsy with Jean-Claude Juncker.
Timmermans is the red devil simply by being a social democrat, but he is also guilty of sponsoring a systematic and massive settlement of non-Christian immigrants in Europe, which will result in the destruction of the continent’s Christian culture.
Finally, there is President Juncker, who was supposed to be a right-winger but turned out to be a socialist through and through. He is guilty of letting in the immigrants, which in turn led to the departure of the United Kingdom from the EU. Of course, this is a most misleading description of Great Britain’s road to Brexit. And on top of everything else, Juncker discriminates against Central Europeans.
And so, the gloves are off. Somebody’s going to come out of this fight bloodied.