The Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, after weeks of anticipation, has initiated a fresh “patriotic alliance”, aspiring for it to evolve into the most dominant conservative faction in European political circles. This move comes ahead of the deadline for establishing new parliamentary bodies by two weeks. To this end, Orban’s Fidesz party has decided to join forces with Austria’s Freedom Party (FPO) and the ANO, a Czech liberal protest movement led by ex-Prime Minister Andrej Babis.
Orban expressed his concerns over the neglect of European citizens’ aspirations for tranquility, law and order, and progress by what Orban terms as “the prevailing Brussels elite” whose political strategies promote “conflict, immigration, and stagnation”. This development comes into play as Hungary takes on the rotating presidency of the EU for the forthcoming six months with the motto – “make Europe great again”, that echoes the sentiments of Trump’s popular campaign slogan.
Fidesz, currently ruling Budapest with a two-third majority, led in the European polls in Hungary and scored 45% of the votes. Following years of internal discord, the party was expelled from the Center-Right European People’s Party (EPP) two years ago and since then, doesn’t belong to any group.
In the neighboring Austria, the FPO topped last month’s election results with 25% of the votes and anticipates a similarly robust performance in the parliamentary election scheduled for September 29th. FPO leader Herbert Kickl hails this newly-formed patriotic alliance as commencing a “fresh phase in European politics”.
Simultaneously, the Babis party which portrays itself as a coalition of disappointed citizens, also won the Czech European elections, accomplishing 26% of the votes. Altogether, these three parties possess one additional seat required for a fresh political faction, but still lack members from four other mandatory parlies as required by parliamentary etiquette.
On Monday, Portugal’s radical right-wing Chega party announced that its two MEPs will join this newest alliance. Andre Ventura, the Chega leader, proclaimed in an online video that this alliance will take on the issue of spreading “socialism, communism, and globalism” at an EU level.
This new alliance represents a reshuffling of the right-wing factions within the European Parliament, which are currently split between the Identity and Democracy Group (ID) and the Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR). The ECR will be missing the Czech ANO while the ID group, bereft of Austria’s FPO, continues to be dominated by Marine Le Pen’s French National Assembly (RN), Italy’s Lega and the Freedom Party (PVV) under Dutch election champion Geert Wilders.
With Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) party still lacking three affiliations, attention is now turning to it. The party’s MEPs found themselves ousted from the ID faction last month, following corruption charges and contentious comments from its top European candidates.
Despite securing 15 seats in the recent European election, AfD leaders have kept silent about their subsequent steps, although anonymous party representatives disclosed to German press that the party may potentially align with the newly formed Patriots of Europe group.
This could potentially be a stumbling block for Marine Le Pen’s aspirations to consolidate the right-wing factions under a single umbrella and become the parliament’s second strongest faction. It remains to be seen if the French politician and her National Rally (RN) party, which recently scored a significant win in the first round of Sunday’s national election, can be persuaded to participate.