Italy emerges as ground zero for European extremist populism

MILAN – Italy’s populist interior minister is uniting Europe’s right-wing parties under an anti-migrant, anti-Islam, anti-bureaucracy banner for this month’s European Union elections, pledging to reshape the continent.

The latest target of Matteo Salvini’s wooing: Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban. The two bonded over a shared vision for a Europe with sturdy borders during a visit to Hungary by Salvini that included a tour of razor-wire fences Orban had built in 2015 to keep out asylum-seekers. Salvini attracted Orban’s admiration for closing Italian ports to humanitarian rescue ships carrying migrants picked up at sea.

Salvini’s influence is clear in the growth of a euroskeptic political group in the European Parliament, Europe of Nations and Freedom, or ENF, that hopes to increase its influence substantially after the elections in three weeks’ time.