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MEP Daniel Freund told POLITICO he was \u201cconfident\u201d the motion criticizing V\u00e1rhelyi would pass in the plenary. | Martin Bertrand\/Hans Lucas\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\nThe Left called for his resignation last October when reports emerged of the alleged Hungarian spy ring operating in Brussels. The Commission is investigating, and V\u00e1rhelyi has strongly denied any knowledge of the claims. The Commission told reporters last month it had \u201cmade progress\u201d in its inquiry, but did not give a timeline to inform the Parliament of its conclusions.<\/p>\n
The Socialists and Democrats group did not respond to multiple requests for comment.<\/p>\n
Even if MEPs adopt the report, the Parliament’s rebuke of V\u00e1rhelyi may amount to little more than a public slap on the wrist.<\/p>\n
MEP Daniel Freund told POLITICO he was \u201cconfident\u201d the motion criticizing V\u00e1rhelyi would pass in the plenary. | Martin Bertrand\/Hans Lucas\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
People like a doer<\/p>\n
V\u00e1rhelyi is not without his admirers in the Parliament, even if that support is at times begrudging. There is little appetite in the centrist Renew group, for example, to go after the pro-industry health commissioner\u2019s job, according to two officials affiliated with the group, both granted anonymity to discuss the matter freely with POLITICO.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe broad sense within Renew is that he performed well overall, and that this is, in any case, not the right moment\u201d to force him out of office, one said. Another said it was a \u201cfact that there has been some issues with V\u00e1rhelyi\u201d and expressed support for the reprimand, but agreed he had done \u201cgood things on health\u201d and shouldn’t lose his job.<\/p>\n
The center-right European People\u2019s Party is also generally aligned with V\u00e1rhelyi on his pro-business agenda. \u201cThe EPP Group opposes the misuse of the discharge vote in the European Parliament as a tool for political activism,\u201d a spokesperson for the group said. \u201cSuch politicization risks setting a dangerous precedent.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Left called for his resignation last October when reports emerged of the alleged Hungarian spy ring operating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16416],"tags":[7794,4569,5019,422,1430,7936,388,934,1086,1275,403,350],"class_list":{"0":"post-48577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-peter-magyar","8":"tag-daniel-freund","9":"tag-enlargement","10":"tag-health-care","11":"tag-hungary","12":"tag-meps","13":"tag-oliver-varhelyi","14":"tag-parliament","15":"tag-peter-magyar","16":"tag-rights","17":"tag-spying","18":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","19":"tag-viktor-orban"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116485706475388125","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}