Salvini, Orbán and Morawiecki to meet amid rumours of new right-wing European group

Poland and Hungary’s prime ministers, Mateusz Morawiecki and Viktor Orbán, will on Thursday meet in Budapest with Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italy’s Lega party.

News of the 1 April meeting has renewed speculation that the populist leaders will seek to form a new right-wing European alliance, following the departure of Orbán’s Fidesz party from the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) earlier this month.

Following media reports about the meeting, Salvini – who served as deputy prime minister in 2018-2019 – confirmed the news in a tweet this afternoon. He said, however, that the aim was “to discuss not political groups, but an idea of Europe close to the spirit of the founding fathers and fundamental values of our continent”.

Hungary’s state news agency, MTI, has reported that the formation of a political grouping will, in fact, be on the agenda, according to Reuters. Italy’s Corriere della Sera has said the same, notes the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

Orbán has previously promised to hold talks with other conservative parties about creating a new group. “Poland, Italy and Hungary will try to reorganise the European right wing,” he said earlier this month.

“We are working to create something new, because a certain type of Europe with an outdated mindset is unable to respond to the needs of 2021,” added Salvini, quoted by Associated Press. Yesterday he said that Thursday’s meeting would culminate in a “joint declaration and charter of values”, reports ANSA.

“Europe will be different after Covid-19, and we’ll have a chance to rethink Europe’s identity,” Salvini told MTI. “In Budapest we’ll discuss the vision for a future Europe based on work, welfare, security, identity, the family and education.”

Fidesz left the EPP this month after years of growing tension over issues such as the rule of law, academic freedom, immigration and LGBT rights.

Poland’s national-conservative ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party – which has also repeatedly clashed with Brussels over the same issues – is already the main force in a separate right-wing grouping, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR).

Salvini’s Lega is part of the nationalist Identity and Democracy (ID) group, which also includes Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (formerly National Front) party.

In February, Orbán wrote to the president of the ECR, Giorgia Meloni from the Brothers of Italy party, calling for increased cooperation between “reliable battle comrades…based on the policy of common sense as well as on Christian and conservative values”.

In January 2019, PiS’s chairman – and Poland’s de facto leader – Jarosław Kaczyński met with Salvini ahead of that year’s European elections. Reports at the time suggested that the Italian leader was keen for PiS to join a new European grouping with the likes of Le Pen and the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders.

“Poland and Italy will be part of the new spring of Europe, the renaissance of European values,” said Salvini during his visit to Warsaw. “[We] will feed Europe with new blood, new strength, new energy…[and] counter the Franco-German axis with the Italo-Polish axis.”

However, nothing concrete came of the talks, with PiS and Lega remaining in separate European camps. An anonymous ECR source told Frankfurter Allgemeine at the time that Salvini’s “close relations with Putin” were a stumbling block.

Later in 2019, Morawiecki said that, while a partnership with Salvini would be possible, PiS would “rule out an alliance with any faction that had France’s National Front as a member”.

Main image credit: Krystian Maj/KPRM (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.