Eastern Europe’s new conservative alliance

Viktor Orban, Hungary’s ‘controversial’ (i.e. conservative) prime minister, travels today to Vienna to meet the new premier of Austria, Sebastian Kurz, for their first serious political conversation since the latter’s election. Orban and Kurz are seen in the conventional narrative shared by the international media, the European Left, and most Western European governments as the terrible twins of the populist nationalism now emerging across Europe. Both are better described as nationalist-minded conservatives who draw on populist support—Kurz’s conservatives have the populist Freedom party as their junior coalition partner, Orban’s substantial parliamentary majority is achieved in part by populist votes from the still unrespectable Jobbik party.

Both are also known, in this case quite accurately, as politicians who have taken a strong stand against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ‘welcome’ policy towards Syrian refugees who in practice proved to be migrants of various kinds from several countries. Both now resist the attempts of Brussels to distribute refugees across the continent via a system of quotas.