HUNGARIAN Prime Minister Viktor Orban and the Italian Interior Minister
Matteo Salvini have teamed up to attack the French premier
Emmanuel Macron and have proposed working together to tackle the migrant crisis.
The politicians met for talks on Tuesday in the Italian city of Milan where Mr Orban described Macron as “the leader of pro-migration parties in Europe today”.
Mr Orban accused the French leader of welcoming illegal immigrants into his country and then Mr Salvini said the French leader was not helping Rome with migration issues when the country needed it as he turned back migrants at
France’s border with
Italy.
Mr Orban said: “He leads the European force that backs migration, he’s the leader of those parties who back migration to Europe, and on the other side there’s us who want to stop illegal migration.
Mr Salvini said the French leader did hardly anything to help Italy when it comes to migration and the country asks for help.
He has also repeatedly criticised the European Union over immigration and accused the bloc of abandoning Italy as it struggled to deal with the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have arrived since 2013.
The French president said that Rome had acted with “cynicism and irresponsibility” in turning away a migrant rescue ship.
The migrant rescue ship Aquarius was welcomed in Spain after it was turned away from other European countries.
In response, Mr Salvini said the country had “nothing to learn from anyone about generosity, voluntarism, welcoming and solidarity” and demanded a formal apology from Mr Macron.
Mr Salvini demanded Mr Macron open the France-Italy border to ease pressures on his country.
He added: “The important thing for Italy is that it be a zero-sum exchange, which means we’re willing to take back in our country the migrants involved in secondary movements as long as the same number of migrants are taken away from our country.”
France and Germany have been pushing for Italy to take back migrants who originally arrived in Italy but have since moved to other more northern European countries.
Mr Orban’s government has built a fence along Hungary’s southern borders to keep out migrants and has congratulated Mr Salvini for stopping migration at sea.