Orbán to welcome AfD's Alice Weidel in Budapest

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will soon receive the president of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), Alice Weidel in Budapest. The German politician was elected as candidate for chancellor on 11 January. In a post on X, the Hungarian Prime Minister wrote that he looks forward to Alice Weidel's visit. The post was accompanied by a photo of the Prime Minister standing in front of a globe at his office at the Carmelite, with the English text: "Berlin has always been a city of walls. It's time to tear down another one down!"

Last week, Orbán congratulated the German CDU after the party, which is classified as moderate, voted with the far-right AfD to pass a resolution through parliament that would tighten immigration rules. Following the party's decision, Viktor Orbán responded to last week's vote on Thursday with a "Good morning Germany! Welcome to the club!" to which the German foreign ministry retorted, "We are already members of the greatest club ever. It's called the EU."

In the end, on Friday, the German parliament failed to pass the CDU/CSU bill aiming to tighten immigration rules. The vote is seen as a watershed, because it would have been the first time in the past decade and a half that a moderate party had voted through a proposal in parliament along with the votes of the AfD, which is considered far-right.