Hungary’s main conservative opposition Fidesz will not invite Lajos Bokros, a former Socialist-liberal finance minister who is now an MEP representing the junior conservative Democratic Forum, to its Europe-related policy strategy meetings, a senior Fidesz official told MTI on Wednesday.
Jozsef Szajer, the party’s delegation head in Brussels, said that whereas both the Democratic Forum and Fidesz belonged to the European Peoples’ Party (EPP), Fidesz nevertheless preferred not to include him in regular policy discussions.
Fidesz, which boosted its number of MEPs to 14 from 12, will however continue to hold regular consultations with MEPs representing Hungarian parties from beyond borders in Romania and Slovakia, he said.
Szajer said that Hungarian MEPs belonging to the EPP had “stepped beyond” the issue of Trianon. He noted that Laszlo Tokes, a controversial ethnic Hungarian politician from Romania, belonged to the EPP, without elaborating on whether Fidesz would cooperate with him.
In response to a question about whether Fidesz was willing to coordinate with Jobbik, a radical nationalist Hungarian party, in the European Parliament, Szajer said just as other groupings in the EP sometimes cooperated on particular issues, Fidesz would do so with Jobbik if it were in Hungary’s interest.
It is interesting to note an article in The Times today (Friday) that several of the extreme right wing parties that won seats in the EP have not succedded in forming a “Group” yet and so have lost out on lots of money. These include the Italian Northern League and the Dutch for example. Only Jobbik and the Bulgarians have loosely associated themselves with the BNP. It will be very interesting to see how this works out because I for one cannot see how “nationalist” parties from different countries can actually work with each other when they are seeking to protect their own from external influences. I imagine that the leaders of the EU will attempt to sideline these groups considering that the EU is one huge Socialist experiment.