CDI to establish Budapest institute

The Centrist Democrat International (CDI), a Christian democratic political formation, will set up an institute in Budapest with the aim of "providing political and intellectual ammunition to its member parties", Zsolt Nemeth, the head of ruling Fidesz's foreign affairs cabinet, said in Rome on Friday. The CDI, of which Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is a vice-president, is holding its executive meeting in the Italian capital. The international political grouping has seen considerable growth in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas and in the Carpathian Basin since last February when it held its executive meeting in Budapest, Nemeth told Hungarian public media. He called the establishment of the CDI's Budapest institute a major milestone in the grouping's expansion, saying that it would allow the organisation to get even stronger over the coming years.