Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has called for “anti-migration politicians” to take over Europe’s institutions after this spring’s elections, as he hailed a new partnership between Poland’s rightwing government and Italy’s populist interior minister, Matteo Salvini.
“This is a topic that is radically transforming European politics, it’s the defining political process in Europe,” Orbán said at a rare press conference in Budapest on Thursday. “The party structures, traditionally left or right, are being taken over by a different dimension – those for migration and against immigration.”
Orbán said 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 national leaders make the most important EU decisions.
In Warsaw on Wednesday, Salvini said he believed Italy and Poland could trigger a “European spring” that would break the strength of France and Germany in the EU, and offer the union “new blood, new strength, new energy”. Salvini met with Jarosław Kaczyński, the head of Poland’s governing Law and Justice party (PiS) and the most powerful politician in the country, before giving a joint press conference with the Polish interior minister.
“The Warsaw-Rome axis is one of the most wonderful developments of the year so far. I have high hopes for it,” said Orbán. He has set out a position as Europe’s most staunchly anti-migration leader over recent years, frequently using far-right rhetoric of civilisational clashes and a Europe under threat from invasion.
Members of Poland’s ruling populist party signalled some reservations on Thursday about the putative alliance. Witold Waszczykowski said “the only arrangements that have been made concern further meetings and further consultations, but there are no arrangements for a deal, a creation of alliances or common clubs in the European Parliament”.
In 2015, when hundreds of thousands of migrants travelled through Hungary en route to western Europe, Orbán was an outlier with his hardline response, which included building a fence along the length of the country’s southern border and opposing all EU plans for refugee redistribution quotas.
His Fidesz party won a two-thirds majority of seats in the Hungarian parliament last April after fighting a campaign largely based around migration, as well as demonising the Hungarian-American financier and philanthropist George Soros.
Over the past year the mainstream in Europe has tilted closer towards Orbán’s position, though many of his allies in the European People’s party (EPP) are uneasy about corruption and rule of law concerns in Hungary, as well as some of Orbán’s more populist remarks on migration.
“The debate on migrants is reinterpreting the whole sovereignty debate: who can decide who they wish to live with?” said Orbán on Thursday. “Can you force groups of aliens on them or should you allow them to decide on who they want to adopt? It’s clear that those who are pro-immigration will not respect the decision [of those] who do not want to receive migrants.”
The EPP is ostensibly a centre-right grouping and its politicians have come under pressure to expel far-right Hungarians from their ranks.
They have often countered that if they kick out Orbán, he could be more dangerous as the figurehead for far-right forces in a newly configured European parliament. On Thursday, Orbán implied he would continue to forge alliances with other nativist politicians, even while part of the EPP.
“While we are [in the EPP] and I hope it’s for a long time to come, we will continue to be loyal to our party family. At the same time, when it comes to migration, migration doesn’t know party limits,” he said. “I am completely fed up that when the EPP is looking for allies, we are only looking in the direction of pro-immigration forces.”
Orbán identified the French president, Emmanuel Macron, as the leader of the pro-immigration forces he opposes. “If what he wants with regards to migration materialises in Europe, that would be bad for Hungary, therefore I must fight him,” the Hungarian prime minister said.
In contrast, Orbán called Salvini “a hero in my eyes” for his anti-immigration stance.
In response to Orbán’s comments about Salvini, the president of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group in the European parliament, Guy Verhofstadt, wrote on Twitter: “The EPP have always said they can control Orbán by keeping him inside their tent. Now that he’s promoting a new far-right group, it’s clear he is out of control.”