Saturday, September 1, 2018

Italy and Hungary Create 'Anti-Immigration Axis'

by Soeren Kern • September 1, 2018 at 5:00 am

"We are close to a historic turning point at the continental level. I am astonished at the stupor of a political left that now exists only to challenge others and believes that Milan should not host the president of a European country, as if the left has the authority to decide who has the right to speak and who does not -- and then they wonder why no one votes for them anymore." — Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini.
"This is the first of a long series of meetings to change destinies, not only of Italy and of Hungary, but of the whole European continent." — Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini.
"We need a new European Commission that is committed to the defense of Europe's borders. We need a Commission after the European elections that does not punish those countries -- like Hungary -- that protect their borders." — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini meet in Milan, Italy on August 28. (Image source: RT France video screenshot)

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini have pledged to create an "anti-immigration axis" aimed at countering the pro-migration policies of the European Union.

Meeting in Milan on August 28, Orbán and Salvini, vowed to work together with Austria and the Visegrad Group — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia — to oppose a pro-migration group of EU countries led by French President Emmanuel Macron.

Orbán and Salvini are seeking a coordinated strategy ahead of the March 2019 European Parliament elections to defeat the pro-immigration Party of European Socialists (PES), a pan-European party representing national-level socialist parties from all EU member states. The objective is to change the political composition of European institutions, including the European Parliament and the European Commission, to reverse the EU's open-door migration policies.

At a joint press conference, Salvini said: