Hungary's Orban Vows Closer Salvini Ties But Keeps Options Open

[TomSea]

Hungary's Orban Vows Closer Salvini Ties But Keeps Options Open
By Zoltan Simon

Two of Europe’s most high-profile populist leaders met to explore cooperation, raising the chance of a widening nationalist alliance inside the European parliament after elections this month.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he’d cooperate “visibly, earnestly and openly’ with Italian Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini, who’s trying to build a group of like-minded nationalists within the European Union. Speaking alongside Orban Thursday in Budapest, Salvini said a bloc of far-right parties stood a chance of winning a majority.

With Orban’s place in mainstream European politics in limbo, the meeting was an opportunity for Salvini to try to recruit the self-styled “illiberal” leader, whose Fidesz party has been suspended by the center-right European People’s Party. Europe’s biggest political group cited the erosion of the rule of law under Orban’s nearly decade-long rule.

Read more at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-02/hungary-s-orban-vows-closer-salvini-ties-but-keeps-options-open