Following the suspension of his Fidesz party from the European People’s Party group, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has set his sights on an alliance with Italian populist Interior minister Matteo Salvini.
Prime Minister Orban spoke of the Italian populist coalition government over the weekend during a migration summit in which he told his fellow Hungarians that the country required allies to fight against the European establishment, Kronen Zeitung reports.
“Hungary is too small to enforce its opinion in Europe. Media, NGOs, universities in Europe are all against us and can destroy us. That’s why we need strong allies,” Orban said.
In a radio interview on Sunday, the Hungarian leader also slammed “left-leaning” parties in Europe for wanting to control what happens in Hungary and urged voters to vote for Fidesz in the upcoming European Parliament election in May.
Last week the European People’s Party (EPP), a conservative parliamentary group within the European Parliament, suspended Fidesz after complaints over a poster campaign featuring EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and left-wing billionaire George Soros.
Following the vote, Orban gave a press conference on the suspension saying, “The EPP is a party family which tries to keep together liberal, left-wing parties and Christian conservative parties like us. In recent weeks the left side of this big and colourful community called for the expulsion of the right side to turn its direction to the left.”
He also mentioned Salvini during the press conference saying, “Salvini and the Italian government proved that migration can be stopped even on the sea, this is very important.”
Both Salvini and Orban met last year with the latter calling the Italian populist his “hero” and both promising to build an alliance.
Such an alliance may also involve the Polish Law and Justice (PiS) party who have been a staunch ally of Orban against the EU establishment and recently also met with Salvini to forge deeper ties.
Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com