MigrationEurope’s anti-immigration leaders push for a bloc to counter France, Germany

Published 9 January 2019

Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban hopes that a populist, right-wing alliance can gain an anti-migrant majority in the European Parliament. The formation of the alliance was announced by Italy’s Matteo Salvini. Divisions over Russia and Vladimir Putin, however, may see some prospective members decline to join.

Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban hopes that a populist, right-wing alliance can gain an anti-migrant majority in the European Parliament. The formation of the alliance was announced by Italy’s Matteo Salvini, who Orban described as a “hero.”

Orban on Thursday pledged his full support for an Italian-Polish initiative to form a populist, right-wing alliance for European Parliament elections due in May.

Orban said Hungary’s goal of the alliance was to gain an anti-immigrant majority in the European Parliament, which, he said, he hoped would spread to the European Commission, and later, to national legislative bodies as national elections change the EU members’ political landscape.

AP reports that that Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said during a visit to Warsaw on Wednesday that Italy and Poland should join forces in a Euro-skeptic alliance, expressing hopes that an “Italian-Polish axis” would replace the current “French-German axis.”

The Polish-Italian or Warsaw-Rome alliance is one of the greatest developments that this year could have started with,” Orban said, describing Salvini as a “hero” for stopping migration on Italy’s shores.

Orban spoke out against French president Emmanuel Macron, whom Orban described as the leader of pro-immigration policies in Europe.

It is nothing personal, but a matter of our countries’ future,” Orban said of Macron. “If what he wants with regards to migration materializes in Europe, that would be bad for Hungary, therefore I must fight him.”

Orban also said he could not see any chance for a compromise with Germany. He said German politicians and media attack him and put excessive pressure on him to admit migrants.

He predicted that there would be two civilizations in Europe: One “that builds its future on a mixed Islamic and Christian coexistence” and another in Central Europe which would be only Christian.

Orban won a third consecutive term in April, following an election campaign which focused on anti-immigration policies, as European voters increasingly respond to populist agendas.

The Russia question
One issue which may be an obstacle for the formation of such an anti-immigration alliance is Russia.

Since 2015, the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence branch, has employed a combination of sophisticated social media disinformation campaigns and hacking of political organization in support of populist, right-wing, ethno-nationalist, anti-immigration, and even neo-Fascist political parties and movements in Europe and the Americas.