Europe’s centre-right party has thrown a protective ring around Olivér Várhelyi, the Hungarian EU commissioner appointed by Viktor Orbán, in the aftermath of Fidesz’s defeat last month, several sources told Euractiv.
Várhelyi, who is in charge of health and animal welfare, has been the focus of intense speculation about the prospect that he could lose his job should Péter Magyar, the incoming Hungarian prime minister and a member of the centre-right EPP, push for it in Brussels.
“I think Ursula von der Leyen simply doesn’t want the mess,” said an MEP from the EPP.
Last week in Strasbourg, MEPs from Péter Magyar’s Tisza party pushed to include a call for Várhelyi to leave his post in a plenary vote, tied to a budgetary vote. But EPP insiders, led by group leader Manfred Weber, struck it down.
Orbán’s Fidesz party left the EPP in 2021 and founded the far-right Patriots for Europe group in 2024.
Tisza MEPs, who belong to the EPP, were “really pushing” for this call, said one MEP, involved in the negotiations on behalf of another political group. The Parliament vote would not have forced Varhélyi to resign, but it would have piled pressure on von der Leyen to take a public stance on the matter.
A second EPP parliamentarian said that Weber’s defence of Várhelyi was in coordination with von der Leyen.
Magyar, who will be inaugurated as prime minister on Saturday, is more focused on unlocking EU funds in talks with Brussels and clearing out Fidesz appointees from domestic institutions.
The Commission president, the person said, does not want to create a political precedent ahead of the French presidential elections in April 2027.
“Would [French Commissioner] Stéphane Séjourné be replaced by a far-right figure if Rassemblement National were to win the presidential election?” a Commission source asked.
During the negotiations on the budgetary vote, the EPP raised the prospect that the Commission’s leading socialist, Teresa Ribera, could lose her job if the government changes hands in Spain’s 2027 election.
Not only is removing a commissioner after a national election legally complicated, but it could open a Pandora’s box for Brussels after other big national elections next year.
More immediately, Slovenian Commissioner Marta Kos is under pressure from Janez Janša, who is poised to return to power after the recent election in Slovenia.
Janša’s return isn’t Slovenia’s Orbán moment
Slovenia’s knife-edge election last month delivered no clear winner and opened the door to a…
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The office of Zoltán Tarr, the leading Tisza MEP, referred Euractiv to fellow deputy Kinga Kollar, who declined to comment.
Von der Leyen has backed the policy initiatives Várhelyi has put forward, and he enjoys broad support from across the political spectrum in Brussels for his legislative work.
But an internal Commission investigation into allegations of spying, while he was the Hungarian ambassador to the EU, which he denies, could spell trouble ahead.
(mm, ow)
Source:
www.euractiv.com