After he cast his vote this morning, Viktor Orban told reporters he hoped the European parliamentary elections would strengthen anti-immigration forces in Europe. Prime Minister Orban said: “I hope that there will be a shift in the European public arena in favour of those political parties who would like to stop migration. “We reject migration and we would like to see leaders in position in the European Union who reject migration, who would like to stop it and not to manage it.”
Mr Orban, whose Fidesz party is expected to win the election by a landslide, declined to comment on whether his party would join join Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini’s Europe-wide, right wing party alliance after the election.
Fidesz was in Jean-Claude Juncker’s EPP group – the biggest group in the European Parliament – but Mr Orban’s views on migration has seen him at odds with his more liberal peers.
He said the migration issue, and how people react to it, will reshape the political spectrum in the European Union – meaning traditional party groupings will not play the same role in the future.
Speaking in English, he said who will join whom was “the big question of the future.”
Mr Orban said: “We would not like to belong somewhere where we don’t have an influence on the main strategy issues,”
Mr Orban’s Fidesz was suspended by the EPP in March amid concerns that it has violated EU principles on the rule of law, and either side could pull the plug on their association.
Mr Orban, who has flirted with far-right leaders from across the continent while professing loyalty to the EPP, has campaigned framing the election as a choice between forces backing and opposing mass immigration.
