Viktor Orbán’s attempt to turn his new far-right alliance into the third force in the European Parliament reaches its peak this week, but it remains debatable whether the group will be able to exert influence in the European Parliament.
A month after the European elections, the new far-right group Patriots for Europe is the only one left to be established.
The appearance of the new far-right alliance “Patriots for Europe”, founded by Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz and the ANO of former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, has reshuffled the cards on the European extreme right. Announced from a Viennese hotel last weekend with the clear intention to become the largest right-wing group of the European Parliament, the alliance began to attract parties from the orbit of the Identity and Democracy (ID) groupas the founding party, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), and later, last week, the Portuguese Chega!
The Italian Leaguewhich dominated ID in the previous legislature, has also shown its support for Orbán’s initiativeand the head of the delegation, Paolo Borchia, referred on July 5 to his group’s association with ID in the past tense.
Last week, the Patriots tried to convince all 20 MEPs of the Polish Law and Justice party (PiS) to join the group, but PiS ultimately decided to stay, probably using the Patriots’ offer to leverage internal positions in the conservative ECR.
But the Patriots hit ECR from another direction, convincing the Spanish delegation of the group, the far-right Voxso that he would desert.
A few hours later, Geert Wilders, of the PVV, announced that his dutch nationalist party would join the project, followed by the Danish People’s Party and the nationalist flamenco Vlaams Belang on Saturday – leaving Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) as the only party left in ID, for which the group name is now clearly redundant.
Waiting for Le Pen’s move
Looking ahead to the constitutive meeting on July 8 called by Orbán, the Patriots can count on ten MEPs from the Hungarian Fidesz, seven from Babis’ ANO, six from the Austrian FPÖ, two from the Portuguese Chega!, six from the Spanish Vox, six from the PVV Dutch, one from the Danish People’s Party and three from the Belgian Flemish nationalist Vlaams Belang: a total of 41 MEPs.
If Lega’s eight MEPs are added, the Patriots could reach 49 deputies. This seems almost certain after frequent displays of support from the Lega to Orbán’s initiative last week: On Friday, in an official note, the Lega described Vox’s move to the Patriotas as a “very important signal.”
This would be sufficient to constitute a group – which requires the criterion of 23 MEPs from seven delegations nationals-, but the Patriots also want to pocket Le Pen’s 30 MEPs, the largest national delegation in the European Parliament, to complete Orbán’s great plan for the extreme right.
Until today, the “battle of his life” of the lepenistas in the french elections has kept them away from group negotiations, an ID source told Euronews. But communication channels are open, the source said, and Le Pen welcomes Orbán’s initiative.
RN leader Jordan Bardella did not explicitly mention the Patriots initiative during his speech after Sunday night’s French elections, but said his MEPs They will join “a large group that will influence the balance of power in Europerejecting the avalanche of immigrants, the punitive ecology and the confiscation of our sovereignty.”
That the National Group asks to join is taken for granted, since its MEPs will be left without a roof in Parliament after the ID breakupand continuing without joining would leave the party without resources in expenses and influence.
If Le Pen’s MEPs join the Patriots as expected, Orbán’s stated goal of taking over the third largest groupas they would surpass both ECR (with 78 MEPs) and the Renew Europe Liberals (76 MEPs), with the latter falling from the third to the fifth largest group in the space of a fortnight.
“We are sure that, as the third largest group, we send a clear signal to the federalist extremists and defend a Europe of nation states,” said former ID Spitzenkandat candidate and Danish MEP Anders Vistisen, who announced his intention to join the Patriots on Saturday.
Exclusion of senior officials
Ursula Von der Leyen has declared that will not engage with any far-right group in next week’s negotiations to secure her candidacy for re-election as head of the Commission.
Regardless of their size, the Patriots are not expected to get no weight positionas chairmen of committees or vice-chairmen in the European Parliament, as a result of the call cordon sanitaireby which the centrist and left-wing forces in Parliament prevent far-right groups from sharing internal power.
The Patriots too They missed an important internal deadline last Thursday, July 4. Outgoing Parliament President Roberta Metsola explained before last month’s EU summit that groups formed before July 4 would then begin negotiating positions of influence among themselves.
Although groups can be formed at any time, it remains to be seen if the Patriots will be able to gain their distribution of the main positions in Parliament not having met last week. A Parliament source noted, however, that the deadline is only procedural and that “a late submission would only cause those preparing the allocation sheets to spend a sleepless night.”
ADVERTISINGHowever, even when senior positions are assigned to far-right groups in the first power-sharing talks, these appointments they have not received confirmation votes necessary later in Parliament, with the cordon sanitaire that traps the parties in this final phase.
If the extreme right group, which represents 11% of the seats of the entire hemicycle, is outside the distribution of positions, that will benefit other groups -particularly the three largest-, who would thus be overrepresented in senior positions in Parliament.
The extreme right
The Patriots’ growth prospects beyond the National Group are very limited. The other possible candidate to join, the German far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), continue confronted with Le Pen’s party.
AfD lead candidate Maximilian Krah’s comments downplaying Nazism sparked Le Pen’s ire, which led to expulsion from the partyof plagued by multiple scandals of his parliamentary group before the EU elections.
A source from the ID group told Euronews that “there is almost zero chance of the AfD joining the Patriots”, while sources from other parties confirmed that talks had at least been attempted.
ADVERTISINGAfD’s large delegation of 15 MEPs could try create another far-right group, externally supporting the cause of the Patriots. Group sources have told Euronews that talks have taken place between the AfD and MEP Ivan David, a Czech ID member dissuaded from joining the Patriots due to the group’s membership. rival party, ANO de Babis.
The two parties would need another seven MEPs from five countries to form a parliamentary group, and to do so they can fishing in the fishing grounds of the non-affiliated.
A party source familiar with the far-right suggested that the AfD could aspire to the Spanish party Se Acabó la Fiesta (three MEPs), the Greek far-right patriotic movement Niki (one MEP), the Hungarian Our Homeland Movement (one MEP), the Latvian party ANO (one MEP), and the Latvian party ANO (one MEP), First Party of Latvia (one MEP), SOS Romania (two MEPs) and Revival of Bulgaria (three MEPs).
Both the Patriots and any hypothetical far-right group led by the AfD could continue looking for new members within the conservative ECR group, as happened with Vox, in the next week, the source added.
