Manfred Weber meets Viktor Orbán on Tuesday

Prime Minister's press officer Bertalan Havasi announced on Monday that PM Viktor Orbán will welcome the Leader of the European People's Party's EP group Manfred Weber in Budapest on Tuesday.

Havasi added that the meeting will not be open to the press, but information will be available based on the mutual agreement of the parties once the talks concluded.

On Sunday, Weber told German newspaper Welt Am Sonntag that he will be initiating conversation with the Hungarian prime minister about the debate around the EPP membership of Fidesz. Weber said:

In the following days, I will try to personally talk to Viktor Orbán in Budapest, because I want to attempt making it clear for him that the road he has taken leads out of the EPP.

Weber added:

This is not a conflict between the East and the West, this is not about migration policies, this is about the values that determine the EPP and the EU.

The political assembly of the European People's Party is likely to commence the formal debate on terminating Fidesz's membership in the political group on 20 March 2019. Read more about the conflict between the Hungarian governing party and its European political group here.

Earlier, Manfred Weber set three conditions for Fidesz to remain in the EPP:

• Viktor Orbán immediately stops his anti-Brussels campaign once and for all,
• Orbán apologises to the member parties of the EPP,
• and he ensures that CEU can stay in Budapest.

So far, the Hungarian government made a promise to fulfil one of these conditions, as chief of staff Gergely Gulyás announced that Fidesz wants to remain in the EPP, and that they would remove the billboards depicting George Soros and Jean-Claude Juncker by 15 March.