ZAGREB, February 20, 2019 – Prime Minister and Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) leader Andrej Plenković has said that his Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban, who is the chief of the Fidesz party, has made a mistake by publishing a controversial poster which accuses the European Commission and billionaire businessman George Soros of undermining Hungary’s security, but stopped short of specifying whether Orban’s political party should be expelled from the European People’s Party (EPP) group in the European Parliament.
The Hungarian government has posted on its Facebook account a poster showing the faces of EC President Jean-Claude Juncker and Soros and including messages saying that the European Union will introduce mandatory migrant settlement quotas and reduce financial assistance for countries opposed to migration.
Earlier, the European Commission denounced the poster as a “ludicrous conspiracy theory.”
Plenković on Wednesday evening joined in the criticism of such posters, explaining that making them public was a bad decision.
I think that it sends a wrong message about the EU migration policy, Plenković said in the northern Croatian city of Varaždin.
Asked by the press whether Fidesz should no longer be in the EPP group, which also includes the HDZ, Plenković answered: “We can’t react as fast as you would want us to.”
On Tuesday, Juncker said that Orban’s Fidesz should leave the centre-right European People’s Party. Orban is perceived as one of Europe’s most vocal anti-immigrant leaders.
Fidesz is a leading party in Hungary and is projected to win a large number of seats in the EP in the forthcoming elections, which is why its expulsion from the EPP may weaken that group.
More news on the relations between Croatia and Hungary can be found in the Politics section.
