BUDAPEST, Hungary – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban held talks with populist politicians in Italy and Poland on Thursday to create a new right-wing nationalist policy on the European stage.
The trilateral assembly brought Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and former Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini to Budapest, the Hungarian capital. At a post-conversation press conference, politicians promised to continue their cooperation in the search for what Orban called a “European Renaissance,” but presented some key points about the nature of the alliance.
The occasion came two weeks after Orban’s government, Fidesz, ended a breakup with his Central European political family, the European People’s Party (EPP). This ended years of confrontation over Hungary’s adherence to Democratic norms and Orban’s structure of what he calls an “liberal democracy. “
Since his party now does not have a caucus in the European Parliament, Orban has said he hopes to “reorganize the European right” and a house in Brussels for Hungarian lawmakers and other anti-immigrant parties.
“We came here in combination to plan and communicate about Europe’s long term,” Orban said. “As Mr Salvini said, and we all agree, we need a European renaissance. Array. Millions of European citizens have been discovered without sufficient and effective representation. “
Salvini, who has Orban’s strong opposition to immigration, heads the Italian League, the largest party of the far-right organization Identity and Democracy (ID) in the European Parliament.
Salvini, who expressed the hope of such a merger, called the assembly “historic” and highlighted the symbolism of its fall on Holy Thursday.
“We are running so that European citizens can leave the darkest post-war moment, hope, family, work, rights, freedoms at the centre,” he said. be a rebirth, a resurrection. “
But a gigantic coalition of right-wing forces in Europe faces many obstacles as a result of political differences between its potential members, said Daniel Hegedus, a central European member of the German Marshall Fund.
“A massive merger between ID and ECR is unattainable, there are too many inconsistencies and conflicts,” Hegedus The Associated Press said.
One of the conflicts takes into account the other approaches of the right-wing parties in their relations with Moscow. As Italy’s interior minister, Salvini worked to soften the EU sanctions against Russia. He was also involved in an investigation through Rome prosecutors following an accusation that an associate seeking Russian money for his League party, fees that Salvini denies.
Other ID members, such as the National Rally de France Marine Le Pen, also have close ties to Moscow.
But these ties may be just a point of friction for Poland’s ruling party led by Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who subsidized Ukraine’s European integration efforts and helped push for the EU to sanction Russia after its annexation of Crimea in 2014.
“Kaczynski sleeping with Salvini can do the very complicated task for (the ruling party) in Poland,” Hegedus said.
Poland’s opposition civic platform party leader Borys Budka said Wednesday in Warsaw that Morawiecki was “implementing Putin’s policy” through an assembly with Orban and Salvini, and said that “champagne corks may seem in the Kremlin” in the assembly.
But the Polish ruler sustains Fidesz’s discontent with the EU, and either side claims that Brussels has violated its sovereign decisions. The clash with the bloc peaked late last year, when Hungary and Poland vetated the bloc’s seven-year budget and coronavirus recovery. programme on provisions linking the payment of the EU budget to respect for the rule of law.
On Thursday, Morawiecki echoed Orban’s calls for a European political force that “respects national sovereignty and freedom” and defends values.
Despite political affinities between the governments of Warsaw and Budapest, Poland’s ruling party has the most powerful position in the ECR, Hegedus said, and leaving the organization would serve its political interests.
“Virtually all parties are betting only to show that they are vital at European level and that they have vital partners,” he said. “The only user in a hurry is Orban because he’s cold. “
Orban said politicians would meet in May, the highest likely in Warsaw.
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Associated Press editors Monika Scislowska in Warsaw and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed.
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