Prime Minister Viktor Orbán expressed his appreciation in a letter to Matteo Salvini, head of Italy’s League party, and thanked him for his efforts “benefitting Italy and the whole of Europe including Hungary”, the prime minister’s press chief said on Thursday.

“We, Hungarians, will never forget that you were the first Western European leader to make an attempt to prevent illegal migrants from flooding Europe via the Mediterranean Sea,” Bertalan Havasi quoted from the letter.

“Irrespective of future political developments in Italy and of the fact that we belong to different European party groups, we consider you as a brother in arms in the fight to preserve Europe’s Christian heritage and stop migration,” Orbán’s letter said.

Featured photo by Szilárd Koszticsák/MTI