Hungary is gradually moving away from Europe because Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s “populist and nationalist politics” lead the country to a historical dead-end, main opposition Socialist leader Attila Mesterhazy said on Thursday.

Mesterhazy told his party’s European parliamentary election campaign opening event that Hungary being a member state of the European Union, it had the means to enforce its interests. The EP is expected to have a left-wing majority and the European left will use the EU to help create jobs and increase respect for workers, he added.

Tibor Szanyi, who leads the Socialists’ EP list of candidates, criticised conservative EU leaders and accused them of reducing Europe to poverty. He promised that the left-wing will change this situation and propose the introduction European minimum wages and pensions.

He criticised the planned monument to the victims of Hungary’s German occupation to be set up in central Budapest. He asked Csaba Horvath, the Socialists’ candidate for Budapest Mayor, to have the statue removed once he enters office and set it up “in the middle of the Felcsut sports stadium,” making reference to the newly inaugurated facility in Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s native village west of Budapest.