Geert Wilders has defended his decision to attend a conference of populist and far-right parties in Hungary where journalists are banned for being “woke”.

The PVV leader said he was not the host of the CPAC event in Budapest on April 25 and 26, adding: “the entry criteria are not up to me.”

Wilders will share a platform with his longstanding friend, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who was one of the first foreign politicians to congratulate him on the PVV’s success in last November’s election.

Politicians from other far-right parties in Europe, including Vox from Spain and Belgium’s Vlaams Belang, are also expected to attend the event, along with several Republican members of Congress who support former president Donald Trump.

International journalists who applied to cover CPAC Hungary were sent a rejection letter in English informing them that it was an “ironclad rule” that the event was a “no woke zone”.

Democratie anno 2024: u bent niet welkom om verslag te doen van @geertwilderspvv‘s toespraak op Orbáns conservatieve CPAC-hoogmis eind april in Boedapest, want er geldt een NO WOKE ZONE #cpac24 pic.twitter.com/C5NLYYy3Te

— Tijn Sadée (@tijnsadee) April 8, 2024

Last year a journalist for the Guardian newspaper was physically ejected from the event by security guards in the middle of an interview with former US senator Rick Santorum.

The International Press Institute called the removal an “attack on media freedom”, while the organisers blamed a “system error” for accrediting the reporter in the first place.

Leaders of the other parties trying to form a government with Wilders’s PVV said he was free to attend, while making clear they did not endorse his decision.

“Everyone has the freedom to meet people,” Pieter Omtzigt of the centre-right NSC said. “I would have chosen a different conference. But I have different political ideas.”