Viktor Orbán and Matteo Salvini showed off their budding bromance on Thursday, flirting with the idea of an alliance between conservatives and the far right after this month’s European Parliament election.
The Hungarian prime minister and Italy’s interior minister met in Budapest the day after Orbán issued a public call for the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) to team up with Salvini’s nationalist-populist bloc.
Orbán’s Fidesz party is currently suspended from the EPP for mounting a campaign against EU migration policy and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
But Fidesz remains a member of the EPP group in the European Parliament and the Hungarian leader has suggested its suspension will be lifted after his party puts in a strong performance in the May 23-26 European election.
Manfred Weber, the EPP’s lead candidate in the election, has ruled out an alliance with Salvini’s League and other far-right parties such as France’s National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen.
Critics of Orbán and Salvini accuse both men and their parties of xenophobia.
But at a joint news conference with Salvini on Thursday, Orbán suggested he would find it hard to stick with the EPP if it forms an alliance with “pro-migration” parties on the left. After the last election, the EPP formed a so-called grand coalition in the Parliament with the center left.
“It will be difficult to find our place in that cooperation,” Orbán said.
Critics of Orbán and Salvini accuse both men and their parties of xenophobia and backsliding on democratic standards and the rule of law. The European Parliament has started disciplinary proceedings against Hungary, accusing Orbán’s party of putting the EU’s fundamental values at risk.
In an interview with the Italian daily La Stampa on Wednesday, Orbán praised Salvini as “the most important person in Europe today.” He argued that the EPP “must work together with the European right. I make no secret of the fact that this is the approach I support. Later we’ll see what form this partnership takes.”
In Budapest, Salvini was eager to show how the two countries are already teaming up. “I have appreciated the reciprocal availability to back each other … in case of disputes in Brussels,” he said, noting that his party had opposed the European Parliament’s decision to take action against Hungary.
Orbán took Salvini to see the border with Serbia where Hungary, during the 2015 migration crisis, built a controversial fence to keep out asylum seekers and migrants.
He said that if Orbán’s vision prevails in the EPP, “an alliance will be on the cards.”
However, neither man announced any concrete plans, such as Orbán quitting the EPP or Salvini declaring a desire to bring the League into the center-right bloc.
In Brussels on Thursday, Hungary’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó set out the case for the EPP to form an alliance with parties to its right.
“We do think EPP should work together, not with the Socialists, but with Mr. Salvini, for example,” Szijjártó told POLITICO in an interview.
“EPP has formed the majority in the European Parliament for long years with the Socialist Party. Just like in a marriage, just like in a friendship, the partners definitely do shape the personalities of each other, without a doubt. In this marriage, the Socialist partner shaped the personality of the EPP partner much more than to the other direction,” he declared.
Thursday’s encounter between Salvini and Orbán was not their first meeting. They also met in Milan last summer, stressing their common commitment to hard-line anti-migration policies.
That theme was also at the fore in Thursday’s meeting. Orbán took Salvini to see the border with Serbia where Hungary, during the 2015 migration crisis, built a controversial fence to keep out asylum seekers and migrants.
During the helicopter trip, Salvini recorded a short video message, distributed on Facebook, in which he stressed that the common line with Hungary is that “one can get into Italy and Europe only with permission.”
Despite their grand ambitions, polls suggest that even if the EPP were to form an alliance with a new bloc being built by Salvini — expected to include Le Pen’s National Rally, Austria’s Freedom Party, the Alternative for Germany and other parties — their combined strength would fall far short of a majority in the European Parliament.
POLITICO’s latest projection puts the EPP on 172 seats and Salvini’s group on 70 seats in the 751-member Parliament.
Any attempt to form a tie-up with Salvini would also meet fierce resistance from within the EPP, whose more centrist members pushed to exclude Orbán from its ranks.
Kalina Oroschakoff contributed reporting.
