Fidesz Has Been the EU’s Orphan for a Year, but It Still Votes With Its Old Party Family

Fidesz MEPs are finally free to vote in the European Parliament independently of the left-leaning People’s Party — says the governing party’s message on how it’s dealing with the split with the centre-right in the EU which happened more than a year ago. 

We examined how much the Fidesz MEPs’ opinion has changed with this independence, and what similarities can be seen with the votes of their potential new allies. For now, they still vote mostly in harmony with the People’s Party, and they are more likely to vote with the liberals than with the Le Pen-Salvini block.

We are establishing ‘a new centre-right’ — announced Matteo Salvini, leader of Italy’s Northern League party with Viktor Orbán last week. Following his landslide election victory in April, the Hungarian prime minister’s first trip was to Rome, in order to add a foreign ally to his victory at home. The fact that he did not go to Warsaw (as has been his custom after previous victories), and that this is the umpteenth time he has made such a vow shows the difficulties of the EU terrain.

Fidesz Caught Between Two Stools

Talk of a new centre-right was meant to be a stab at the old one, the European People’s Party (EPP). The weight of the political family from which the majority of the European Parliament and EU leaders come has been dwindling, and as of last year, Fidesz is not a member either. The Hungarian governing party came from the liberals in 2000, and the cooperation was apparently not disrupted by the fact that by the mid-2010’s, Orbán seemed to have begun playing a two-goal game.