The ostentatious gallantry of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who kisses Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s hand when he arrives at Palazzo Chigi, is not enough to avoid embarrassment on an international level. And the problem is certainly not the gesture itself. Orban, having arrived in Italy, has not spared broadsides against the EU and his attacks have put Meloni in an uncomfortable position to say the least, always balancing between political friendships and the need to maintain peace with Brussels. The prime minister chooses not to intervene and does not respond to opposition criticism. Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Tajani puts his face to it: “Receiving it doesn’t mean thinking the same way”.
Orban embarrasses Meloni
Hungarian Prime Minister Orban has fired nothing at the EU. He clearly said that “it doesn’t matter” and that “Donald Trump is wrong about Putin: I will go to him to get him to lift the sanctions on Russia” on oil. Not only that, before leaving his hotel in the capital, Orban explains his vision of the stalemate between Russia and Ukraine, which he himself hopes to resolve with a face-to-face meeting between Trump and Vladimir Putin in Budapest, which is still only hypothetical. “We have outsourced the possibility of resolving the war to the Americans and Russians. Unfortunately, we do not have a role. Europe is totally out of the picture”, Orban tells Repubblica and Messaggero, arguing that “the important point is the future of the European economy, because very little remains to be done about the war”.
Meloni is silent on Orban, Tajani puts a patch
Burst of sentences, which can hardly be misunderstood. Meloni, who has never hidden her political affinities and good relations with Orban, suddenly found herself between two quarrels. Our friend Orban on the one hand, the EU on the other. The strategy of seeking mediation proved difficult to implement.
Meloni chose silence: no meeting with the press at the end of the summit, but the usual and icy note from Palazzo Chigi of a few very formal lines: “The meeting allowed us to focus on the prospects of bilateral relations and to have an exchange of views on the main themes of international current affairs, with particular reference to the situation in Ukraine, developments in the Middle East and the European agenda. Among the topics addressed, also the initiatives for effective and innovative management of migratory flows. Finally, the two leaders discussed the opportunities offered by the European Safe instrument, evaluating possible synergies between Italy and Hungary to support their respective industrial and technological capabilities”.
Once again the deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, puts his face to the test. “There’s nothing wrong with receiving Orban. It’s not that having a conversation means thinking the same way. And knowing Meloni, he’s in line with himself, not with the others,” he says, admitting that he has “a different vision” from the Hungarian leader on the relationship with Russia.
From the Democratic Party they ask Meloni and Salvini to “distance themselves from Orban”, the M5S leader Giuseppe Conte claims that the Hungarian prime minister “is very bad, because Putin must be condemned for the aggression, only now we have to find a peaceful solution”.
