Fidesz quitting European People’s Party

The letter was signed by Fidesz’s international secretariat and addressed to the Secretary-General of the EPP, Antonio Lopez-Isturiz White.

Novak, who is also Hungary’s minister in charge of family affairs, commented on Twitter saying: “It’s time to say goodbye”.

Fidesz’s MEPs quit the EPP group in the European Parliament on March 3 after the group approved its new procedural rules.

Explaining the decision, Novak wrote that in 2015, in the midst of “the migration crisis”, the EPP pegged its future to supporting migration.

“Hungarians rejected this,” she said, and insisted they did not want to “become like countries in which the effects of mass immigration had become irreversible”.

Novak said that the EPP, instead of seeking solutions to EU vaccine procurement, had quietly changed its procedural rules in order to deprive democratically elected Fidesz members of their parliamentary rights.

It had become clear, she added, that on most issues the EPP represented “left-wing values that Fidesz cannot identify with”.

“Fidesz belongs to the democratic right in Europe,” she said, adding that it was necessary now to reform it.