Meloni sees Orban: «With him divergent positions but we find solutions»

«Italy is among our most important allies. Especially to reach the objectives on migrants and competitiveness»: these are the first words spoken by the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbàn at the end of the meeting he had this afternoon in Rome with Giorgia Meloni. The face-to-face meeting between the two lasted about an hour and a half. «I agree with the priorities of the Hungarian Presidency of the EUwhich will start on July 1st, starting with the unexpected decision of include the demographic challenge among these» replied the Italian prime minister for her part.

Fidezs, the right-wing party led by Orbán, was also about to join the Conservative groups in the European Parliament (Ecr) chaired by Meloni. But a series of disagreements, in particular on attitudes towards the war in Ukraine, ruined the project. « We discussed the Ukrainian conflict, our positions are not always coincident but I appreciate the Hungarian position in the EU and NATO allows allies to make important decisions even when he doesn’t agree. With Viktor we reiterated our support for Ukrainian independence and sovereignty” Meloni pointed out. «I made it clear that we we follow a national policy and cannot be part of a political family which includes a Romanian party that is anti-Hungarian. We are all committed to strengthening collaboration and cooperation between European right-wing parties” added Orbàn.

Orbàn has not given up attacking – as he has been doing for days – the hypothesis of an agreement on the so-called «top jobs» (the main four positions in the EU: «We can not accept that a majority and an opposition are created in Europe e that a coalition divides the top jobs», said the Hungarian prime minister. Since 2014, «a situation has been created in which the commission from being the guardian of the treaties has become an actor, behaving like a government. Three parties have formed a majority and are acting like a government, with a majority and an opposition. Europe wasn’t originally like this: it was based on the involvement of everyone, large and small, not on exclusions. As Hungary, we cannot accept this». Orban then complained that Brussels is delaying the enlargement of the Union to the Balkan countries: “Shameful that they have been waiting for 15 years.”

As a slogan for the semester of the European Presidency, the leader of Budapest chose a slogan – Make Europe great again – which echoes that of Trump’s electoral campaign in the USA and at the end of the meeting he also focused on this topic of the political agenda: “Our presidency will fight for competitiveness, the green transition is not against the economy.”

Meloni and Orban instead said yes agree on solutions for the migration issue: defense of external borders, fight against traffickers, agreements with the countries of origin of the flows, Albania model for reception centres.

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