Romanian-Hungarian Politician Calls on EPP to Listen to Ordinary People’s Voices

President of the RMDSZ (Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania), Hunor Kelemen, believes that the European People’s Party (EPP) should offer a helping hand to the “political orphans,” once again take on the representation of farmers, small and medium-sized enterprises, and ensure the enforcement of the rights of Europe’s indigenous national minorities.

Kelemen Hunor, as leader of the EPP’s oldest Romanian member party and one of the hosts of the party group’s two-day congress in Bucharest, spoke on Wednesday, the opening day. In his welcome speech, he said that the EPP had led the European Union for the last decade and that he therefore also bore responsibility for the situation.

He pointed out that angry, frustrated, and insecure people want security and predictability, and that the EPP must convince them that it does not represent bureaucracy or exclusive economic interests, but the interests of ordinary people.

We must be able to distinguish ourselves from the socialists, the greens, the liberals.

We cannot say the same things they say. We cannot repeat their themes, because then we will become like them. And our voters will turn away from us, and their voters will neither vote for us,” the leader warned his party group.

He stressed that the EU’s economic competitiveness cannot be sacrificed on the altar of a forced green transition, but that a transition that does not require more sacrifices than gains it produces is needed. In his opinion, the EU needs to show strength, not by constantly dealing with those who have a different opinion, “because that is the easiest way,” but by showing strength in a way that makes it “relevant again and inescapable in shaping world politics.”

As Maszol.ro reported, the RMDSZ President stressed that his party represents 1.2 million ethnic communities. “From the very first moment after the fall of the communist dictatorship, my community believed that our country belonged in the European Union, then the European Economic Community and the North Atlantic Alliance,” he said. He stressed that “our historical experience is that prosperity has never come from the East. Freedom has never come from the East, nor has security. We still believe that today.”

Germany’s Manfred Weber, who is currently leading the EPP, has been accused by conservative politicians of leading the political faction into a leftward direction, and betraying the group’s Christian, conservative roots. The conflict for the direction the EPP is heading had culminated with the departure of Viktor Orbán’s FIDESZ party from its European Parliament group in March 2021. RMDSZ, politically aligned with FIDESZ, had decided to stay, so did FIDESZ’s junior coalition partners, the Hungarian Christian Democrats (KDNP).

Via MTI, Maszol.ro; Featured image: Facebook/Kelemen Hunor (Gönczy Tamás)