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| - Hungary's ruling Fidesz led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban has resigned from the centre-right European People's Party, a minister said Thursday, two weeks after leaving its European parliamentary group. "It is time to say goodbye," Katalin Novak said in a tweet accompanied by a letter signed by Fidesz leaders. "I hereby notify the Presidency of the European People's Party that Fidesz no longer wishes to maintain its membership in the European People's Party, thus resigns," said an English version of the letter. The move marks a definitive break with the EPP, which brings together Europe's main centre-right parties and is the biggest single voting bloc in the parliament. It is the party of both Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel. Fidesz's decision to quit the parliamentary group earlier this month came immediately after the conservative bloc voted for a rules change that opened the way for it to suspend Orban's party over alleged repeated democratic backsliding. The decisions follow years of rancour between EPP parties over whether to kick Fidesz out of the parliamentary group or keep its MEPs on board to avoid them siding with eurosceptic populists. The PPE released a two-line statement duly noting the departure of Fidesz, after 20 years of working together. PPE leader Donald Tusk of Poland tweeted: "FIDESZ has left Christian Democracy. "In truth, it left many years ago." Orban has called for the creation of a new European right-wing force for "our type of people". He has said he was in talks with "the Poles," referring to Poland's governing right-wing PiS party, as well as Matteo Salvini and Giorgia Meloni, leaders of two stridently anti-immigration and eurosceptic Italian parties. pmu-anb/bp/pvh
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