In a recent article for POLITICO, “This time, Viktor Orbán has gone too far” (August 3), my colleague in the European People’s Party, Swedish MEP Anna Maria Corazza Bildt, made an urgent plea for the Hungarian prime minister’s Fidesz party to be expelled from her political group.
I wholeheartedly agree with her. In recent years, the EPP leadership has been urged countless times to stop protecting Orbán and his all-out war on democracy and on migration. Each time, they responded that keeping him on board would moderate his actions.
That approach has not worked. To the contrary, other parties in the EPP family are following him to the fringes and embracing his views, rather than rejecting them. As a result, the EPP is deeply split — along with other traditional party families — over issues like migration, identity and values.
Orbán is not the problem. He is merely one of its most…
