When Viktor Orbán and Matteo Salvini got together Tuesday, they had their sights set firmly on one man: Emmanuel Macron.
At a joint press conference in Milan, the Hungarian prime minister portrayed the French president as Europe’s main proponent of throwing open the doors to illegal migration. Standing next to him, the Italian interior minister accused Macron of hypocrisy for speaking about European cooperation but ignoring requests for help from Rome.
It’s going to be a fight that lasts at least until next year’s European election, for which Macron wants to put together a centrist coalition and the populists hope to present a united front.
“He leads the European force that backs migration, he’s the leader of those parties who back migration to Europe, and on the other side there’s us who want to stop illegal migration,” said Orbán.
“On this issue, there’s a big debate also in the EPP,” he added, referring to the conservative European People’s Party, Europe’s largest political family, which counts Orbán’s Fidesz party and German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union as members. Orbán said he wants his hard line on migration to be “generalized” by the EPP ahead of the EU-wide ballot.
The Hungarian PM said Macron, who has not joined a European political group, presents a risk to the EPP, saying the French leader “wants to blow up the European People’s Party in the same way he has done with the French party system.”
Salvini, who attacks Macron on an almost daily basis, said when it comes to migration, Italy first of all asks for help from neighboring countries and therefore from France, “where President Macron, who at home is at record low popularity, spends his time preaching lessons to foreign governments,” but does little or nothing to help Rome.
During the press conference, Salvini said he wants to join forces with Orbán to create what in June he called the “League of the Leagues,” but added that he didn’t ask him to leave the EPP to make that happen.
The Hungarian prime minister said he wants to stay an EPP member. “I’m Hungarian, I’m loyal,” he said, adding that before meeting Salvini, he asked permission from the EPP’s Italian member, ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.