Europe

Hungarian party faces discipline from center-right EU bloc

Associated Press
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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban attends a ceremony during the 171th anniversary of the outbreak of the 1848 revolution and war of independence against the Habsburg rule in Budapest, Hungary, Friday, March 15, 2019. (Zsolt Szigetvary/MTI via AP)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban attends a ceremony during the 171th anniversary of the outbreak of the 1848 revolution and war of independence against the Habsburg rule, in Budapest, Hungary, Friday, March 15, 2019. (Zsolt Szigetvary/MTI via AP)

A senior lawmaker from Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel's party says Hungary's ruling Fidesz party may be suspended from the main center-right bloc in the European Parliament.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban's authoritarian style and anti-European Union, anti-migration policies have long put him at odds with many members of the European People's Party, whose delegates are meeting Wednesday to debate possible disciplinary measures against Fidesz.

Inge Graessle, an EU parliament lawmaker from Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, told Germany's SWR2 radio that she believes the EPP will "temporarily suspend his membership today — that is the step before expulsion — and then he can choose how he wants to continue."

Graessle said Orban, who had led Fidesz practically unchallenged since the early 1990s, "has to show credibly that he will change."