“Thank you Giorgia”: This is the hashtag used by the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban concludes a tweet reporting on a Politico.eu article dedicated to the case of the Humanity 1 ship with 179 migrants on board, docked in the port of Catania, whose landing the Meloni government has only partially guaranteed women, children and the sick.
Finally! We owe a great debt of gratitude @ Giorgia Meloni and the new Italian government to protect Europe’s borders. #Thanks George https://t.co/llTz5XO2xi
– Orbán Viktor (@PM_ViktorOrban) November 6, 2022
“We owe a great debt of gratitude to Giorgia Meloni and the new Italian government for protecting Europe’s borders,” Orban wrote in the tweet, attaching the article with the interior minister’s photo Matteo Piantedosi. The position of the Hungarian Prime Minister is reminiscent of the time when the leader of Fidesz supported Hungarian immigration policies between 2018 and 2019 Conte I government and the safety regulations of Matteo Salvini.
In May 2019, just before the European Championship, which would have crowned the Lega as the first party in Italy, Salvini visited Orban’s Hungary and, together with the Hungarian Prime Minister himself, visited the border with Serbia, just after Roeszke, one of the symbolic places the closure of the Hungarian borders towards migrants. Orban then used honey words at Salvini: “Here he is considered the hero who first stopped the migrations from the sea, we stopped them on land”. Hungary, a country far from the Mediterranean Sea and not facing the problems of migrant flows from North Africa, clearly has every advantage in praising the activity of a government in Rome determined to crack down on NGOs and landings.
Today, Orban follows the same logic as in 2018-2019: “external” support for Rome’s policies, direct line to critical leaders of uncontrolled immigration, rhetorical thrust to defend Europe’s borders. With Meloni, the feeling is even more solid than with Salvini, so much so that Orban has visited Rome several times at festivals like Atreyu, invited by the leader of the Brothers of Italy. And in the face of an Italian government born with significant foreign policy differences with Hungary (first of all, the position on the war in Ukraine), the refugee game remains one of the challenges that Orban is determined to face with all his willpower on the axis with Rome.
Tajani: “We need a European pact”
At the same time, the diplomatic game continues. Then the foreign minister Antonio Tajani is working on presenting a proposal where Hungarian rhetorical support can be transformed into multilateral cooperation between stakeholders in Europe. “We need a pact at European level to manage migrant landings and routes,” he said in an interview with Il Messaggero. Not only “those that exist in the Mediterranean, but also those of the Balkans and Eastern Europe, which, in addition to Italy, also include member states like Germany and others,” including Hungary, notes Tajani. A not-too-disguised response to the criticism that has come from Berlin in recent days, summed up in the very harsh interview given to Repubblica by the German Social Democrats’ immigration manager, Lars Castellucci.
“We cannot turn the Mediterranean Sea into a graveyard, but we need to know who is on board, where they come from, where they have been taken,” adds Tajani. Jl, who “proposes a series of agreements with the migrants’ countries of origin. I’m thinking of Libya, but also of Tunisia, Morocco, Niger and the entire Sahel.” All of this will come to the table on November 14, when the former President of the European Parliament heads to Brussels for his first community outing in his new role, meeting his European counterparts after seeing those of the G7 in Munster.
It will be a key event to discuss a common European line on immigration, where Italy is ready to move by banging its fists on the table. Moreover, the Meloni government’s line on immigration governance is not only shared by Hungary: even Denmark, led by the Social Democrats and their left-wing coalition, offers an example zero tolerance. There is an opportunity for Rome to demand more solidarity and safer rules for the government to flow, sure that not only Italy is calling for a clearer approach to protecting national and therefore European borders and borders for migrants front.