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BRUSSELS — Rising Hungarian opposition figure Péter Magyar said he doesn’t support sending weapons to Ukraine, moments after bringing his delegation of seven MEPs into the European People’s Party group in the European Parliament.
“We share the position of the [Budapest] government: We will not send troops or weapons to the Ukraine from Hungary. You know the sensitive situation of Hungary in that war,” Magyar told journalists after the EPP voted to accept the MEPs, who hail from Magyar’s Tisza party, as members.
The admission of Magyar’s MEPs prompted Hungarian Christian Democratic People’s Party MEP György Hölvényi, who ran on a joint list of candidates with MEPs from Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz in the EU election, to quit the EPP, citing what he called the EPP’s “war doctrine.”
Senior EPP figures, such as Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and party chief Manfred Weber, have made the acceptance of any new MEPs into the EPP conditional on their support for Ukraine. Weber negotiated directly with Magyar in Hungary last week.
“I think the EPP understood the special, sensitive Hungarian situation in that war. But we will support with all other manner and tools of course [the] Ukrainian people,” said Magyar, who has yet to announce whether he intends to take up his seat in Brussels or remain in national politics.
Magyar also supported Ukraine’s right to defend itself, described Russian President Vladimir Putin as an aggressor, and said Ukraine’s “independence and sovereignty” are internationally protected.
An EPP spokesperson said: “Everything he says in relation to Ukraine and the war, the Orbán propaganda machine uses against him. So it is very clear why he is prudent about that.”
