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 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,…
