French and Hungarian rightist
leaders Marine Le Pen and Viktor Orban will not attend League
leader and Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini's meeting in Milan
Monday aimed at forging a European-election alliance between
'sovereigntist' parties, sources said Thursday.
Le Pen will not attend the gathering, the spokesman for her
National Rally party, Alain Vizier, told ANSA Thursday.
Le Pen is busy on the election trail, he said.
This weekend she will be in Brittany while next week she has
other appointments in other parts of France, Vizier said.
Orban will also skip the meeting called by Euroskeptic and
anti-migrant League leader Salvini, a source close to the
Nepszava newspaper said Thursday.
Orban, the source said, does not want to break with the
European People's Party (EPP), and is hoping to avoid expulsion
from it and steer it rightwards after the May European
elections.
Therefore, the source said, he is "not interested" in
Salvini's initiative.
Interior Minister and Deputy Premier Salvini is organising
an event in Milan to bring together "all European allies of the
League" to "propose a reform to the European Union", he said
last month.
"About 20 movements to propose a new Europe of nations with,"
Salvini said.
Among the 'sovereigntist' rightwing nationalist parties
invited were Orban's Fidesz, Le Pen's National Rally (formerly
Front National), Germany's AfD, and Poland's Law and Justice
party.
Salvini aims to forge a panEuropean alliance for the European
elections at the end of May.
But Orban's Fidesz is not sending any representative to the
Milan gathering, the newspaper source said Thursday.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
