The hopes of EU citizens have been flouted by moves to form a coalition in the EU parliament between the center-right majority party and the socialists and liberals, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Tuesday.
Voters across the bloc shifted significantly to the right in parliamentary elections earlier this month, with ruling coalitions in Germany and France being comprehensively trounced by right-wing parties.
Centrist parties retained a majority however, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s European People’s Party (EPP) winning 190 seats. A former German defense minister, she has vowed to keep Brussels on a “pro-Ukraine” path.
The center-right EPP has approached the left-wing Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) with an offer to divide up four major roles, Politico wrote on Monday, citing sources close to the matter. The EPP reportedly wants to secure second terms respectively for von der Leyen as European Commission President, and Roberta Metsola as European Parliament president, and has offered to share the European Council presidency with S&D.
The move prompted a reaction from Orban. “The will of the European people was ignored today in Brussels. The result of the European election is clear: right-wing parties got stronger, the Left and the liberals lost ground. The EPP, on the other hand, instead of listening to the voters, finally teamed up with the socialists and the liberals: today they made a deal and divided the top jobs of the EU among themselves,” the Hungarian PM wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday.
“They don’t care about the will of the European people. We shouldn’t be naive: they will continue to support migration and send even more money and weapons to the Russia-Ukraine war,” the Hungarian leader wrote, calling on people to resist “pro-migration and pro-war bureaucrats.”
European Council President Charles Michel told journalists there had been no agreement reached on the proposed deal, after an informal meeting of European leaders on Monday. However, one diplomat told Politico that the negotiators agreed on three names, and will continue discussions at a later date.