Late last year, Donald Tusk, the president of the European People’s Party (EPP), a center-right grouping in the European Parliament, tweeted a criticism of Fidesz, the party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. After Tamas Deutsch, a prominent Fidesz politician, compared the leader of the EPP in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, to the Gestapo, Fidesz seemed on the verge of finally being booted from the European Union’s largest political family—again.
The recurrent theater of almost expelling Orban’s party has gone on for the better part of the past decade, yet Fidesz remains a member of the EPP. True, since 2019 it has been “suspended,” effectively barred from taking part in the EPP’s collective decisions. Yet, Fidesz members in the European Parliament still have the right to speak in the plenary on behalf of the EPP group, and they continue to hold assignments on committees and other formal positions belonging to the group.
