After meeting Marine Le Pen, President of the French National Rally (NR), in Budapest, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said they agreed that the EU was facing tough challenges, getting less competitive in the global economy and lacking adequate political influence and strength in the international arena. Nor is it able to withstand the pressure of migration, and keep soaring energy prices under control, he said.
According to MTI, PM Orbán said they opposed the emergence of any kind of European superstate. PM Orbán and Le Pen established that traditional European party structures were transforming all over Europe, and that they wanted to cooperate in this process. He insisted that there is a pressing need for the renewal of the European right wing and that Hungary’s ruling Fidesz has a vested interest in the emergence of a new party group. PM Orbán said Fidesz has become “a political bachelor in Europe” because the European People’s Party “has to such an extent become ensnared by the mainstream left-wing ideology” that Fidesz had no longer any business in it.
As regards the new right-wing group, PM Orbán noted that a key step had already been taken in early July when 15 European parties including Fidesz and NR signed a joint declaration that he said “had broken the ice”. “Today’s meeting is yet another important step” in building cooperation, he said, stressing the need “to speed up the process in the weeks and months to come”.
PM Orbán said party alliances created over the past 30-40 years had lost ground, and this is why he is looking for potential new partners. “Marine Le Pen and her party is such a potential ally,” Orbán said, adding, however, that their talks were yet in an early stage. PM Orbán said he and Le Pen stated solidarity with Matteo Salvini, Italy’s former interior minister who is currently standing “a rather unjust” legal procedure. “Salvini is our hero,” he said, adding that the former minister had proved that migration on sea was possible to stop. “Politicians like him should be recognised and paid respect to in European politics, rather than being subjected to legal procedures,” he said.
Answering a question, PM Orbán said Hungary’s priorities to be emphasized in debates about Europe’s future will include migration, sovereignty and freedom. He said he expected “the intensity of migration waves reaching Europe to change”, but “the wound is still open”. The issue has not been settled, Europe does not have an answer to the question what it intends to do with migration, PM Orbán said. “We must make a clean breast of it,” PM Orbán said and reiterated Hungary’s position that migration must be rejected “as a bad thing” and a country must protect itself against it.
Photo credit: MTI