Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán met Marine Le Pen, President of the French National Rally in Budapest, Hungary Today reports.
“Ideological pressure within the European Union has become unprecedented”, Viktor Orbán said after the meeting. According to the Hungarian prime minister, migration and advocacy of open society have been promoted to a degree unseen before. Over the past few years the European Parliament has made repeated attempts “to crucify” Hungary, Orbán said, expressing thanks to Le Pen and her party for standing up for Hungary.
According to Orbán and Le Pen, traditional European party structures are transforming all over Europe, and they want to cooperate in this process. There is a pressing need for the renewal of the European right wing and that Hungary’s ruling Fidesz has a vested interest in the emergence of a new party group, Orbán said. Fidesz has become “a political bachelor in Europe” because the European People’s Party “has to such an extent become ensnared by the mainstream left-wing ideology” that Fidesz had no longer any business in it, he added.
Hungary has managed to protect itself and its culture while dealing with the issue of migration, Marine Le Pen said. “Every nation has the right to preserve their constitutional identity and the European Union is only entitled to exercise powers that have been conferred onto it by the member states,” she added.
Le Pen said states with a 1,000-year history, like Hungary, must be proud of what they represent. Hungary always fought for freedom, she said, adding that she had paid tribute in Budapest to the heroes of the country’s uprising against Soviet rule in 1956. “We highly value freedom, all that Hungary has done for freedom throughout its history. The history of Europe is inseparable from freedom,” she said.
