ROME (AP) — Hungary and Italy are vowing to work together for an "historic change" in the way Europe deals with migration, security and other issues.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met Tuesday with Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini in Milan, as several hundred people protested their hard-line policies.

Salvini said they were working to create a future alliance "that excludes socialists and the left, that brings back to the center the values and identity" that their respective political parties represent.

He said: "We are near a historic change on a continental level."

Orban said Salvini was his "hero" and that "the security of Europe depends on his success."

Salvini has spearheaded Italy's policy of forcing Europe to take in newly rescued migrants. Orban has made keeping migrants out of Hungary a priority.