Orbán: Fidesz continues to work closely together with Berlusconi’s party

Ruling Fidesz and Silvio Berlusconi’s party Forza Italia will continue to work closely together, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told public media on Thursday.

Orbán held talks with Berlusconi, the leader of the party, and deputy party leader Antonio Tajani.

Orbán said after the meeting that European affairs, Italian-Hungarian relations and issues involving the European People’s Party had been discussed.

Photo: MTI/Miniszterelnöki Sajtóiroda/Szecsõdi Balázs

Concerning European affairs it was agreed that Fidesz and Forza Italia would continue to work closely together in the European Parliament and all other European institutions, Orbán said.

Concerning Italian-Hungarian relations Orbán said he discussed Hungary’s current economic policies which aim to attract investments involving state-of-the-art technology in Hungary and noted that Italian companies are expected to participate.

Berlusconi plans to visit Hungary with a business delegation and they will assess the investment possibilities, he said.

Orbán said that concerning the European People’s Party the sides noted that “within the people’s party we stand very close to each other, we both clearly oppose migration, we oppose tax increase, we oppose European economic decisions that deteriorate competitiveness and we oppose raising tax regulations to the level of the European Union”.

“We are a party alliance and a pair of parties within the European Union that plan to continue cooperation in the future,” he said.

Orbán said “they were strongly trying to convince us to stay in the European People’s Party but we will decide that at a later date, once relations within the European People’s Party can be clearly seen,” he said. “A few more weeks will be needed for that,” he added.

Orbán is in Rome for an event of the Christian Democrat International (CDI) in which he is one of the vice presidents, the head of the prime minister’s press office Bertalan Havasi said earlier.

Source: MTI