Viktor Orbán gains a new ally in Bannon, the ex-Trump strategist

Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist of Donald Trump, told RTL that he will collaborate with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán during next year’s run-up to the elections of the European Parliament.

Bannon, a former chairman of the right-wing Breitbart.com website and an architect of Trump’s 2016 election win, has set up a movement to elect right-wing nationalist and populist members in European Parliament elections in May – wrote Reuters.com.

Bannon held a public lecture last May and he mentioned that he had visited Budapest before and even contacted Orbán and his assistants.

This is an interesting fact because the Hungarian government has not made these meetings public. The government spokesman was unable to answer the inevitable questions immediately.

The Movement, Steve Bannon’s group, is welcomed by Orbán; he says it is time that someone from the United States comes to Europe to strengthen conservative thinking, rather than to promote liberal ideals.

“If I could, we would headquarter the movement in Budapest. I love it so much there.

But obviously, it is not practical. We will spend a lot of time in Hungary between now and election day,” Bannon told RTL in an interview published late on Friday.

Orbán, once the campaign leader against Hungary’s Soviet Communist rule is the Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010. According to his opponents, he used their parliamentary majority to influence courts, media, and non-government groups in a way that disregards EU laws.

In September, the European Parliament voted about registering sanctions on Hungary. According to the EP, Hungary has disregarded the EU’s laws concerning democracy, civil rights and corruption in an unprecedented manner.

Orbán also led the opposition against Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany because of her notion that Europe must take in more immigrants. Orbán previously said that they are the ‘European People’s Party’.

“Hopefully when we get the Movement fully up and running, we’ll engage,” Bannon told RTL.

Steve Bannon said next year’s European Parliamentary election will bring forth the conflict between those core EU members, who want more assimilation, such as Germany or France, and between the more Eurosceptic nations such as Hungary, who would want to strengthen the member states themselves and create a strong collaboration system between them. We wrote an article about this view previously.

Bannon is said to visit Budapest later this November.

Featured image: www.facebook.com/Steve-Bannon

Source: reuters.com