Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó welcomed Remigijus Žemaitaitis, chairman of the Lithuanian party The Dawn of Nemunas and MP in Budapest, according to a report by MTI. Szijjártó also held a joint press conference with Žemaitaitis, who is considered one of Lithuania's most controversial politicians and is known for his strongly anti-Semitic views.
"Only the strengthening of patriotic parties can give Europe the hope of a more peaceful and better future," Szijjártó said at the press conference, where he expressed his appreciation to the Lithuanian politician "for repeatedly standing up for Hungary in international political debates when the government was subjected to unwarranted attacks or slander." According to Szijjártó, the economic and political world order has changed, and Europe is currently struggling to find its place in it. "Only a major European patriotic shift can bring about change in this situation, and the good news is that this major European patriotic shift is already underway," he added.
Szijjártó also met up with the Lithuanian politician about two months ago, in early November. At that time, the Hungarian minister wrote on Facebook that he and the leader of The Dawn of Nemunas shared many similar ideas and were both patriots who considered it important for the European Union to be made up of strong member states and strong nations, who oppose migration and base their economic policies on common sense. At the end of December, Žemaitaitis told the Baltic News Service news agency that his party had already received an invitation from the Patriots, the EP group of right-wing populist representatives, which they would like to join before the Lithuanian local elections scheduled for spring 2027.
As we previously reported in detail, the 43-year-old politician has a well-documented history of making crude anti-Semitic statements; he has referred to Jews as animals or a “subordinate race” in his Facebook posts, blaming them for the oppression of Lithuanians under the Soviet Union. A typical example of his anti-Semitic outbursts came when Israeli authorities bulldozed an EU-funded Palestinian school in the West Bank before the Gaza war, to which he responded with the following rhyme:
“A Jew was climbing a ladder and he accidentally fell; grab a stick, kids, and kill that little Jew.”
Žemaitaitis was expelled from his party in 2024 after the Constitutional Court ruled that his regular anti-Semitic outbursts and hate speech violated his parliamentary oath and the Lithuanian constitution. He resigned from his seat in parliament and formed The Dawn of Nemunas party.
In the 2024 parliamentary elections, his party received nearly 15 percent of the vote, winning 20 seats in the 141-member Lithuanian parliament (Seimas) and even forming a coalition government with the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party and the center-left Union of Democrats for Lithuania. His meeting with Szijjártó in November caused tension within the coalition in Lithuania.
A week ago, speaking at a press conference, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stressed that Hungary has zero tolerance for anti-Semitism.
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