Weber: "It is about bringing people together. We must arrange for young people to be thrilled by Europe again." However, the idea would have cost the EU taxpayer subsidies of 2.3 billion euros every year, hence the proposal did not find much support. Conflicts over Hungary In July 2013, when the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) issued the Tavares Report criticizing the erosion of fundamental rights in Hungary, Weber dismissed it as a politically motivated attack on the government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán by leftist parties. However, in September 2018 he approved the Sargentini report voting to trigger Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union procedure against the government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Nevertheless, as head of the group, he failed in preventing a split in the European People's Party group: 115 of its deputies voted in favour of the move, while 57 voted against, with 28 abstentions and 20 stayed away from voting. In the run-up of the 2019 European Parliament election, Weber could not stop Orbán from his poster campaign targeting European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and billionaire George Soros. Eventually, on 20 March 2019, the EPP suspended the membership of Orban's party Fidesz. When Fidesz withdrew from the EPP under threat of expulsion in March 2021, Weber declared it a "sad day" for the EPP and thanked Fidesz members for their past contributions. Relations with Russia In a 2016 letter to Sigmar Gabriel, German economy minister, and Miguel Arias Cañete, EU energy commissioner, Weber criticized the proposed Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, in that it would undermine the EU's foreign and security goals by increasing dependence on Gazprom, Russia's gas export monopoly. Rather than new supplies across the Baltic, Weber called upon the commission to accelerate its efforts to import more gas across Turkey from the Caspian Sea, and even potentially Iran and Iraq. In response to the arrest and detention of Alexey Navalny in early 2021, Weber demanded that the EU cut financial transactions from President Vladimir Putin's inner circle. Gay conversion therapies In March 2018, Weber voted against initiatives prohibiting gay conversion therapies, unlike the majority of the European People Party's MEPs. Other activities European Academy of Bavaria, Member of the Board of Trustees Institute for European Politics (IEP), Member of the Board of Trustees Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), Member Friends of