Opposed over the content of the reform of the Dublin regulation on asylum, but united over anti-immigration ideas, the two strongmen of Italy and Hungary, the Italian Minister of the Interior, Matteo Salvini, and the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, jointly announced in Milan on the evening of Tuesday 28 August that they were to set up a European anti-migration alliance ahead of the elections of May 2019. Orbán, who described Salvini as his “hero” before the meeting, also referred to Emmanuel Macron as his enemy as leader of the political forces that welcome immigration into the EU, he said (our translation throughout).
The two men are not members of the same political family, with Salvini attached to the French Front National and the Freedom Party of Geert Wilders (in the Europe of Nations and Freedoms group), whilst Orbán is affiliated to the EPP. When asked about the outcome of his meeting with his Italian counterpart in Milan, the Hungarian leader did not say that he intended to leave the EPP, but that he wished to change it from inside and encourage it to go along with his ideas.
On Wednesday 29 August, the French President responded from Denmark that the two men were right to call him his enemy, if this means that he is opposed to nationalism, hate speech and insularity.
On Tuesday evening, the Italian and Hungarian allies also stressed the need to defend the borders against immigration. “It is our aim to help wherever there are problems”, in Africa in particular, “not to bring the problems home to us”, said Orbán, AFP reports. “Hungary is proof that migrants can be stopped on terra firma”, he added, going on to say that “it is Salvini's mission to make sure that these migrants can also be stopped at sea”. “I hope that our meeting will be the first of a long series to change the destinies of Italy, Hungary and the whole European continent”, said Salvini, who also announced that an agreement with Germany on taking back asylum seekers already registered in Italy was imminent. He met his German counterpart, Horst Seehofer, in Innsbruck in July (see EUROPE 12061).
The next relevant European meeting will be the informal summit of Salzburg on 20 September. Between now and then, the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, will have made his latest state of the union speech, in Strasbourg on 12 September, and the new initiative on the Frontex coastguard and border guard agency, which the Commission intends to reinforce, will also be presented around that date. In September, the HCR is expected to publish outlines with a view to the same European elections in which he will again stress the need for solidarity between member states in hosting refugees and asylum seekers. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)