Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will be one of the main speakers at the Budapest Demographic Summit, the President of Hungary announced on Tuesday on social media. In her post, Katalin Novák thanked Giorgia Meloni for accepting her invitation to speak at the fifth Budapest Demographic Summit, which will take place between 14 and 16 September. The summit is one of Hungary’s largest international conferences on demographics.
Following her visit to Ukraine, Katalin Novák travelled on to Italy, where she was received by Pope Francis in the Vatican. The Catholic leader and the Hungarian head of state held a private discussion for forty-five minutes in Spanish in the Pope’s library. This meeting marked the fourth private encounter between Pope Francis and Katalin Novák since the beginning of the year.
Afterwards, the President had a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. ‘Eternal city, eternal alliance. In Rome, I also met with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni for a friendly conversation,’ Katalin Novák announced on social media. As stated in another post by the President, the two enjoyed a ‘Roman lunch’.
Giorgia Meloni is one of Viktor Orbán’s main allies concerning migration in Europe. The Hungarian PM congratulated Meloni on her election as ‘a more than deserved victory’, and when the new Italian government was inaugurated, he wrote on Twitter: ‘This is a great day for the European right.’ As many have commented, so far there has been no spectacular cooperation between the two leaders, who also seem to have different quite views on the Russo-Ukrainian war.
As for the programme of the 2023 Demographic Summit, there is no exact information available yet, however, it is expected that the organisers will soon announce the theme and the speakers.
The biannual Budapest Demographic Summit, held since 2015, is a major forum where politicians, church leaders, experts, representatives of the media, the corporate sector and science discuss the most important current issues affecting families. In 2021, the central theme of the summit was demography and sustainability.
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