Salvini (left) held meetings with his Polish counterpart, Interior Minister Joachim Brudziński (right), and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki before meeting with Kaczyński | Marcin Obara/EPA Matteo Salvini pledges ‘Italo-Polish axis’ after Warsaw talks Italian leader says the ‘European dream … has been killed in Brussels.’

WARSAW — The most powerful politician in Italy pledged to give Europe "new blood, new strength, new energy" and "counter the Franco-German axis with the Italo-Polish axis."

Matteo Salvini, head of Italy's co-ruling League, and Jarosław Kaczyński, chief of Poland's governing Law and Justice (PiS) party, met in Warsaw Wednesday afternoon to discuss working together in the European Parliament after May's election.

They didn't provide details of what such cooperation might entail but Salvini said they "spoke about the future of Europe and how to give a new sense to the European dream, which has been killed in Brussels in the last years."

Speaking in the Italian Embassy, Salvini described the talks as "long and constructive."

"We had very good and satisfactory talks. We agreed on the issue of border security and I received a lot of compliments from the Polish side on how we managed to limit illegal immigration," Salvini said.

"Poland and Italy will be the heroes of this new European spring" — Matteo Salvini

"There is a great historical challenge," he added, "we have to counter the Franco-German axis with the Italo-Polish axis."

Kaczyński did not talk to the press but his top international affairs adviser, Adam Bielan, said the meeting was held in a "good atmosphere" and added: "It was their first meeting and surely they will be meeting again."

Salvini earlier held meetings with his Polish counterpart, Interior Minister Joachim Brudziński, and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.

Before meeting Brudziński, Salvini emerged from a limousine into the freezing Polish winter wearing an Italian police jacket. Afterward, he told reporters the two countries are working on a "joint action plan" for after the European election.

"There will be a joint action plan that will feed Europe with a new blood, new strength, new energy," he said. "Poland and Italy will be the heroes of this new European spring, this revival of real European values, where there will be less finances, less bureaucracy, more work and more family, and above all more security."

"Europe, which will be created from June, will lead us all in a different rhythm and in a different direction than the Europe which today is managed by bureaucrats," Salvini said.

Both sides have an interest in cooperating in the European Parliament. PiS is a founding member of the European Conservatives and Reformists — the European Parliament's third-largest grouping. However, the looming departure of the U.K. Conservatives thanks to Brexit will dramatically shrink the party, so it needs fresh blood.

The League has six MEPs, who are part of the much smaller Europe of Nations and Freedom group.

Both parties stand to do well in the upcoming election. According to the latest polling published by POLITICO, PiS could take 24 seats, while the League could get 27.

A new Salvini-led grouping incorporating nationalists and populists from across Europe could give PiS much more heft in the European Parliament, and buttress its defenses in its ongoing dust-up with Brussels over charges that it is violating the EU's legal and democratic principles.

Despite their parallel political interests, there are differences between the two.

Salvini insists that Northern European countries should accept migrants arriving in Italy, while Kaczyński has built his electoral support on refusing any reallocation of asylum seekers. Salvini is also against extensive EU cohesion funds being granted to Central Europe in the next multiannual EU budget, while PiS is advocating for continued generous financial flows.

Kaczyński is also vulnerable to opposition attacks over Salvini's open support for Russian President Vladimir Putin, a problem in generally anti-Russia Poland.