President Javier Milei declared in a closing speech at the CPAC summit in Hungary on Saturday that “Argentina is in a position to guarantee Europe’s energy security.”
The remarks came after the La Libertad Avanza leader had earlier met with his ally, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the far-right leader who faces elections later this year and is known for his fierce anti-immigration stance.
“We are experiencing a gold rush in energy investment; imagine that by 2030 we will be exporting more than US$30 billion per year. Europe sought energy independence for years; we offer something better: a reliable partner, with enormous reserves and a government that honours its contracts,” Milei said of Argentina at the right-wing summit in Budapest.
Argentina is betting heavily on energy exports from the Vaca Muerta shale formation in Patagonia, one of the world’s largest unconventional oil and gas reserves, which the government hopes will turn the country into a major energy exporter by the end of the decade.
In a typically fiery speech, Milei also spoke about the possibility of a US intervention in Cuba under President Donald Trump. In a nod to his European audience, he also attacked Spain’s left-wing Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
“What can be said about Cuba, which after almost 70 years of a supposed childish revolution that only mattered to the Castro family and left a population plunged into misery, and this week they had to announce a change of economic model?” Milei said in his closing speech.
“Surely, before mid-year, under the leadership of that great man Donald Trump, we will probably see a free Cuba,” he concluded.
In the speech, he again targeted Spain’s PM Sánchez, whom he called a “tyrant in the making.”
“When power separates itself from the responsibility of representation, it can turn into tyranny very quickly. In fact, in the speech just now, my dear friend [and leader of the far-right Spanish party Vox] Santiago Abascal mentioned the tyrant in the making that you have in Spain,” Milei said.
Despite recent difficulties in pushing monthly inflation below two percent, Milei set a new objective, saying he aims to eliminate inflation completely by the end of his term in 2027.
“Probably by the end of our term, in this first term, we will have completely exterminated it,” he said.
During his speech to the CPAC gathering, Hungarian PM Orbán showered Milei with praise, describing him as “a global star of Western values.”
The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is a gathering of right-wing and conservative leaders and activists, with a European edition held annually in Hungary under Orbán’s government.
“It is the first time in the history of our nations that an Argentine President has visited Hungary. We are very happy; he arrives at a very important moment,” said the far-right leader.
Milei – who earlier in the day backed Orbán’s stance on immigration – responded in kind, telling the Hungarian leader that he “has our respect and admiration.”
Milei and Orbán had met earlier in the day at the Sándor Palace, the seat of the Hungarian presidency.
Orbán, who is known for his crackdown on asylum seekers and migrants, has built close political alliances with nationalist and conservative leaders around the world, including Trump and Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. He is also one of the few European Union leaders to maintain warm relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and has often resisted EU initiatives to support Ukraine.
According to local media reports, Milei told Orbán in advance of Saturday’s conference at the far-right CPAC gathering he would speak about migrants and support his stance.
“When immigration does not culturally adapt to the place it goes to, it stops being immigration and becomes an invasion,” Milei told the prime minister during his visit to Budapest, local media reported.
The Hungarian prime minister is a staunch opponent of immigration, which he has described as “poison.”
Orbán published a message on Saturday after the meeting he held with Milei. “It is always a pleasure to see you, President,” he wrote.
Milei was accompanied to the meeting by his sister and Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei and Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno.
Earlier, he had met with Hungary’s President Tamás Sulyok at the Sándor Palace. Milei was received by a military formation and walked along a red carpet alongside Sulyok. The Hungarian president gave him a small statue of a lion as a gift. “Wonderful. I love it,” Milei said upon receiving it.
– TIMES/PERFIL/NA
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