The EPP suspended Viktor Orbán's Fidesz from its political family last March | Attila Kisbenedek/AFP via Getty Images Center-right MEPs turn against Hungary’s Fidesz A vote on rule of law showed growing rift between EPP and Viktor Orbán’s party.

The tide is turning against Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party.

On Thursday, 99 members of the European People's Party (EPP) group in the European Parliament were among 446 MEPs voting in favor of a resolution criticizing the European Council for failing to effectively address rule-of-law problems in Hungary and Poland.

The vote was primarily a symbolic move — but the decision of many German and Austrian EPP members to vote in favor of the resolution, along with other EPP MEPs from countries like the Netherlands, Ireland, Romania, Malta, Portugal and Finland, underscored the Hungarian ruling party's growing estrangement from Europe's center-right bloc.

While the EPP suspended Fidesz from its political family over rule-of-law concerns and anti-Brussels rhetoric last March, the party's 13 MEPs were allowed to remain active members of the EPP group in the Parliament.

The EPP is expected to make a decision regarding Fidesz's future in the coming weeks, but Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán has already been openly floating the idea of joining a different political family.

"If EPP is unable to change itself [in another] direction, I think in the future European politics will need a new European initiative which is Christian Democrat ... If we cannot reach a change inside EPP, we will initiate something new in the European politics," Orbán said earlier this month.

Yet Fidesz still has some allies in center-right circles, in particular in Italy, Spain and France. A group of 24 non-Hungarian EPP MEPs voted against the resolution, while 21 abstained.

"This resolution puts on the same level two countries whose situations are very different," said French MEP François-Xavier Bellamy, who voted against the resolution.

"The question of the rule of law is very important ... but it is far too important indeed to be treated in such an approximate manner, and diverted in favor of an obvious political maneuver. For this reason, our delegation has chosen to oppose this resolution," he added.

Some EPP members, however, say that the vote shows Fidesz is no longer acceptable to the group.

"75-80 percent of the group is ready to see Fidesz go," said Finnish EPP MEP Petri Sarvamaa.

"A part of that majority will miss them, though," he added. "But the main thing is that a clear majority accepts the situation."

Hungarian opposition MEPs hope the vote heralds the end of Fidesz's membership in mainstream European political clubs.

"Since the majority of the EPP supported the resolution, it will be increasingly hard to keep Fidesz in the center right of the political scene," said Katalin Cseh, the Hungarian vice chair of the Renew Europe group. "Their drift to the far right now seems inevitable."

One EPP official said that some members did not like that the resolution noted that the European Parliament should have more insight into the Council's work, perceiving this demand as contrary to the EU's treaties.

Fidesz politicians, meanwhile, have rejected EPP politicians' qualms about the state of democracy in Hungary and called for the closing of the Article 7 censure process against their country.

The majority of the EPP group "submitted to pressure of liberals, instead of standing up for the truth," tweeted Fidesz Vice President Katalin Novák, while thanking those who voted against the resolution.