Populist Italian deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini has met with the Polish government seeking to form a “new European Spring” to combat the “French-German axis” in a battle for the future of Europe.
“I would like there to be a common alliance of those who want to save Europe,” Mr Salvini said Wednesday during a visit to Warsaw, according to La Repubblica.
Mr Salvini met with Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Interior Minister Joachim Brudziński (above right with Mr Salvini), and head of the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party Jarosław Kaczyński in hopes of building a cross-nation parliamentary alliance ahead of May’s EU Parliament elections, to counter the globalist endeavours of Brussels, Berlin, and Paris to force European nations into “ever closer union”.
“I proposed to the leader of PiS Jarosław Kaczyński, and I intend to propose it to others, a pact for Europe… in which Italians, Poles, Spaniards, Danes, and others can decide whether to agree or not. We will work before the elections.”
“The goal is that with the next European elections to the European Parliament the Sovranisti [the ‘sovereigntists’] will be the number one political movement and become a fundamental part of the next Parliament.
“With the numbers of today’s Italian and Polish delegations, we are determined and we will therefore work to be present everywhere.”
Alluding to another pact initiated Wednesday — that of France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Angela Merkel to merge their countries on aspects such as defence and foreign policy as a precursor to a “sovereign Europe” — Mr Salvini asked, “I wonder if the Franco-German axis cannot replace an Italo-Polish one?”
“It will be the best answer to all the Eurosceptics,” he suggested — “and maybe their popular movements will give life to a new European spring, a dream that someone stole from us in the name of finance and banking.”
Speaking ahead of the Italian populist’s visit, Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister Konrad Szymański said that the Italian government was the “forerunner of change” in Europe.
Mr Salvini has been forming alliances with other prominent Central Europeans, too.
In August, the Italian populist met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the pair announcing that they would form a populist front ahead of the European Parliament elections to challenge Macron’s vision of a united states of Europe.
Macron responded by saying, “I will not give anything away to the nationalists and those who defend hate speech.”
“If they [Orbán and Salvini] want to see me as their chief adversary, they are right.”
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