The opposition Socialist-Párbeszéd alliance started its European parliamentary election campaign in Budapest with a nationwide bus tour. Socialist leader Bertalan Tóth said the politicians of the two parties participating in the tour will promote their programme dubbed “Homeland. Love. Europe” at one hundred locations across Hungary. The Socialist and Párbeszéd parties seek to build a “Europe of social welfare” promoting such goals as raising the minimum wage to an equivalent of 737 euros, the minimum pension to 300 euros and the per child family allowance to 147 euros in all EU countries. Tóth said the alliance would seek personal contact with voters because they “cannot compete with the government’s billboards just ordered for a total 10 billion forints (EUR 31m)”.
Ruling Fidesz said in response that the Socialists’ bus is “heading towards the pro-migration coalition”. According to the statement, the two parties “should also tell voters that they have supported all Brussels’s pro-migration proposals such as migrant quotas, migrant visas, and the legalisation of migration”. “MEPs of the Socialist Party and Párbeszéd have not been fighting for the Hungarian people in the European Parliament but for migrants,” Fidesz said. Hungary needs MEPs that “represent Hungarians in Brussels rather than Brussels in Hungary”, the party added.