Hungary’s far-right prime minister has forged new partnership with Italy’s ultra-right interior minister, calling for European “anti-migration politicians” to take over the continent’s institutions in the upcoming elections.
“This is a topic that is radically transforming European politics, it’s the defining political process in Europe,” said Victor Orban during a Thursday news conference with Italy’s populist Interior Minister Matteo Salvini in the capital Budapest. “The party structures, traditionally left or right, are being taken over by a different dimension – those for migration and against immigration.” Orban added.
Salvini earlier said in a presser in the Polish capital Warsaw that he believed Italy and Poland could trigger a “European spring” that would rupture the power of France and Germany in the European Union and offer the block “new blood, new strength, new energy.”
Salvini made the remarks after he met with chief of Poland’s governing Law and Justice party (PiS), Jarosław Kaczynski, who is regarded as the most powerful politician in the country.
“The Warsaw-Rome axis is one of the most wonderful developments of the year so far. I have high hopes for it,” Orban further emphasized on Thursday, setting out a position as Europe’s most staunchly anti-migration statesman in recent years.
The prime minister also described the upcoming elections in May as “destiny-deciding,” saying: “Our goal is that opponents of immigration become a majority in the institutions of the European Union.”
The combative 55-year-old — who has emerged as a self-styled “illiberal” figurehead for nationalist politicians in Europe — hailed Italy’s Salvini as “brave” for his anti-immigration stance.
Orban further insisted that Hungary’s goal was to gain an anti-immigration majority in the European parliament, then in the executive European commission, and later — as national elections change the continent’s political landscape — the European council, where the continent’s national leaders adopt the most important EU policies.
The Hungarian premier went on to identify French President Emmanuel Macron as the leader of the pro-immigration forces he opposes, adding: “If what he wants with regards to migration materializes in Europe, that would be bad for Hungary, therefore I must fight him.”
In contrast, he described Salvini “a hero in my eyes” for his anti-refugee positions.
Reacting to Orban’s remarks about Salvini, the president of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group in the European parliament, Guy Verhofstadt, stated in a Twitter post that “the EPP have always said they can control Orban by keeping him inside their tent. Now that he’s promoting a new far-right group, it’s clear he is out of control.”