In a move designed to send a “strong message” to the European Union over where Italian loyalties lie, Giorgia Meloni visited Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban ahead of Sunday’s vote.
The pair discussed “the future of Italy” as well as illegal immigration and “defending the European identity from the risk of Islamisation”.
And in a swipe at EU powerhouses France and Germany, Mrs Meloni vowed Italy should focus on relations with the Visegrad group of Eastern European nations.
Mrs Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (FDI) party is part of the centre-right coalition which is widely tipped to have the best chance of forming a government after the Italian election on Sunday, March 4.
The alliance is led by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his Forza Italia party and includes the right-wing Lega Nord headed by Matteo Salvini.
vCard.red is a free platform for creating a mobile-friendly digital business cards. You can easily create a vCard and generate a QR code for it, allowing others to scan and save your contact details instantly.
The platform allows you to display contact information, social media links, services, and products all in one shareable link. Optional features include appointment scheduling, WhatsApp-based storefronts, media galleries, and custom design options.
During a trip to Budapest today, Mrs Meloni met with the firebrand Hungarian PM and posted a picture on Twitter with a caption which read: “Now talking to Viktor Orban. Stop illegal immigration. Fighting Soros and speculative finance. Patriots know how to do it.”
Hungarian-born US billionaire George Soros is a frequent target of Mr Orban and the pair’s opposing views have seen them clash on everything from migration policy to economics.
Ahead of the talks, FDI leader Mrs Meloni was quoted by the Corriere della Sera newspaper as saying: “I want to give a strong message about our relations with the EU: we prefer the group of Visegrad, which is against the Islamisation of Europe, to the policies of Juncker and Merkel.”
The Visegrad Group is a political alliance made up of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Speaking about Mr Orban, she said: “It’s not only that I like him, but in the middle of the electoral campaign, I want to give a strong message regarding our relations with the European Union.”
She added: “I am interested in what is happening in Eastern Europe, the group of Visegrad, nations that are trying to defend European borders from the uncontrolled immigration that someone else would want, to defend the real economy from the great financial speculation that instead rages in Brussels and defends the European identity from the risk of Islamisation in Europe.
“I think that the future of Italy, considering a centre-right government, should first of all dialogue with this group rather than with the French-German axis that now commands Brussels.”
(Additional reporting by Maria Ortega.)