“Whenever someone questions us or the rule of law in Hungary, they’re stepping on our honour and I would advise them to think this over carefully,” Orban told a press conference held jointly with Antti Rinne, the serving Prime Minister of Finland.
International relations do not mean that “one country can insult the other”, but is built rather on mutual respect, Orban added.
“I don’t recommend getting to the point in Europe where a prime minister or one of their officials visits another country in the bloc to give them an earbashing on the issue of the rule of law, because that’ll lead to a lot of things, but not European unity,” the Hungarian leader said.
Rinne told the press conference that he had discussed the tasks of Finland’s European Union presidency, including EU enlargement, Brexit and the budget.”Building a better Europe is a common task,” Rinne stressed.
The Finn said measures against climate change and observing the principles of constitutionality must be preconditions for getting access to European Union funding.
But the head of the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office told a conference in Munich organised by Bavaria’s Christian Social Union’s (CSU) parliamentary group on Friday that there was a need for a conservative turnaround in the European People’s Party (EPP) as its further shift towards the Left would cost much in a European parliamentary election.
The issue of a conservative turnaround is also a matter of important debates within the German union parties, namely the CSU and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Gergely Gulyas told MTI in a telephone interview.
“We would like to see the CSU return to a stance that represents a strongly conservative policy within the union parties,” he said.
Hungarian ruling party Fidesz has maintained relations with the CSU, Gulyas said but there have been statements over the past six months by the Bavarian party that “did not point in the direction of deepening relations”. He said however the Bavarian partners “want to close that period, put their grievances aside and look to the future”.
Gulyas is attending a conference of European centrist parties at the invitation of CSU parliamentary group leader Alexander Dobrindt. Prior to the conference, Gulyas held talks with Hans Reichhart, Bavaria’s transport and construction affairs minister, and Markus Blum, CSU’s secretary-general.
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