Salvini fails in bid to secure Orban’s support in Brussels

THE head of Italy’s hard-right League party suffered a double setback yesterday when Hungary’s Viktor Orban shunned an offer to join a new nationalist grouping in the European Parliament, and one of his ministers was convicted of corruption.

Matteo Salvini, the deputy prime minister, had hoped he could recruit Hungary’s Fidesz party to an alliance of populist and nationalist parties, but those hopes appeared to be dashed by Mr Orban’s chief of staff.

Gergely Gulyas told a news conference that although the League was now Italy’s strongest party in the European Parliament he did not “see much chance for co-operation on a party level or in a joint parliamentary group”. Mr Salvini’s League won 34 per cent of the vote in the elections. Enrolling Mr Orban in the populist movement would have been a major coup for his party bringing in 14 more seats in the European parliament and joining his alliance with parties from Denmark, Germany, Finland and France. He is also hoping to persuade the Brexit Party to join the new grouping.

The snub came as Mr Salvini also dealt with the fall-out of an expenses scandal. Yesterday, he accepted the resignation of the League’s Edoardo Rixi after the junior minister for transport was found guilty of fiddling expenses and sentenced to nearly three and a half years in prison.

The accusations dated back to 20102012, when Rixi was a member of the regional government of Liguria.