The European Conservatives and Reformists party seems to want to dump Viktor Orban, the leader who was once seen as a possible ally or even a possible member after the Hungarian prime minister left the European People’s Party. In an article on the website of the political party to which Fratelli d’Italia belongs and of which Giorgia Meloni is president, a very harsh attack against the Hungarian leader was published in which Hungary is defined in the title as “Russia’s Trojan horse in the EU”.
“Following recent diplomatic actions by some EU member states, such as Hungary, it seems that work is slowly being done, in small steps, to build a so-called Russian Trojan Horse, which would be aimed at facilitating the introduction of spies on the territory of a member state in order to destabilize the European Union”, reads the article by Eugen Olariu published in The Conservatives, the online newspaper of the ECR (European Conservatives and Reformists).
Visas for Russians
The author specifically criticizes the new program that aims to simplify the conditions for issuing work visas and entry into the country for citizens of Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Alexander Lukashenko’s Belarus, arguing that according to experts it would create “a facilitation that would allow potential espionage agents to enter the EU” and would have the “main purpose of stirring up controversy and creating the impression of a lack of unity among EU member states”.
Budapest claimed that the decision was motivated exclusively by economic reasons, but the European Union has been very harsh in its criticism, also because Hungary is part of the Schengen area and therefore those who enter the country can then move freely in all the other nations of the bloc. “From a practical point of view, Hungary’s decision is not surprising in the context of Budapest’s solid economic cooperation with Russian companies”, the article claims, recognizing that “there is therefore an economic interest”, which however would be additional to “the main one, which is political”.
From EPP to Patriots
Orban’s Fidesz party was once part of the European People’s Party. However, Orban left the EPP (which wanted to kick him out) in March 2021, ending what had always been a marriage of convenience but at the same time uncomfortable for both parties who often found themselves in disagreement. Since then, Fidesz has been courted by Meloni’s ECR, but in the end, after the European elections, Orban decided to create a new radical right-wing group in the Strasbourg and Brussels Parliaments, the Patriots for Europe, together with Matteo Salvini’s League and Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella’s Rassemblement National.
In fact, the relationship between Orban and Meloni remains excellent and the two are allies in the European Council, but it is the Polish Law and Justice party, another important member of the ECR, who have problems with what was their main ally when they were in government in Warsaw. The Poles, while supporting the same line as Orban on issues such as migrants and LGBT+ rights, are strongly anti-Russian, and have never accepted the soft line towards Moscow of their old ally.
