Brussels – The gestation of the new “Patriots for Europe” group in the EU Parliament has begun after its conception in Vienna on Sunday (June 30) by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the Czech ex-premier and leader of the populist liberal-conservative ANO 2011 party (formerly Renew Europe) Andrej Babiš, and the chairman of the Austrian Freedom Party (formerly Identity and Democracy) Herbert Kickl. If all goes according to plan, the new political formation in Brussels will see the light of day next Monday (July 8), as anticipated by the same deus ex machina of the sovereignist camp reorganized around the figure of Hungary’s father-master.
“We will become a large parliamentary group faster than you might think now, 4-5 more days, and many will be surprised,” Orbán announced during an interview in Magyar Nemzet about the imminent constituent meeting of the new group with “all patriots who are passionate about their country and who care about Europe.” Explaining the deeper meaning of the political initiative launched two days ago in Vienna, the Hungarian premier made it clear that “we do not want a European empire, we do not want the United States of Europe, we do not want a grey eminence controlled by Brussels, we want national sovereignty and independence under our national flags.” Actually, if one looks at who is supposed to join this new formation, it looks more like a rebranding operation of the now defunct Identity and Democracy (ID) group, emptied from within with the exit of the six Austrian MEPs from FPÖ and the two Portuguese from Chega, and the strong interest of the Lega (which has eight elected members in Brussels) in participating.
“Soon the Italians will also join” (from the Lega) are Orbán’s anticipations about the members of his “pan-European group born in Central Europe, but which will then gather around itself the parties of Western Europe.” Statements confirmed not only by the Lega’s secretary Matteo Salvini (“We are at work”) but also by the outgoing president of the ID group, Marco Zanni, who, in an interview with Il Corriere della Sera called Patriots for Europe “the most interesting project for the alternative in Europe,” since “its catalyst is dissatisfaction with a system that does not work and does not change.” Zanni also pointed out that “the project is in continuity with everything Identity and Democracy has stood for in recent years and even before, when the group was called Europe of Nations and of which Le Pen was a co-founder.”
Speaking of Marine Le Pen, the catalyzing figure of France’s far-right Rassemblement National, it is clear that the entire fragmented field of the European right is waiting for the results of the second round of early elections in France scheduled for Sunday (July 7) to launch ambitions—often conflicting due to the nationalisms of national parties—for the 10th term of the European Parliament: not only Patriots for Europe—which has set the date of its constituent meeting for the aftermath of the French runoff—but also the ID Group, which not surprisingly opted to postpone its constituent meeting from July 3 to the same date on July 8. In less than a week, it will be seen whether, as very predictably, the 30 rising Rassemblement National MEPs will end the Identity and Democracy experience to join—along with the Belgians of Vlaams Belang and the Dutch Party for Freedom—the new “patriotic” project.
No less than 23 MEPs from at least a quarter of the member states (seven) are needed to form a new parliamentary group. In this scenario of absorbing Identity and Democracy into Patriots for Europe, there would be, for the time being, 74 MEPs from 10 countries. However, other smaller parties could join, to overcome the liberals from Renew Europe (76) in fourth place among groups in the EU Parliament. The intentions of the Spaniards of Vox and the Poles of Law and Justice (PiS) are still to be assessed; they are both part of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group along with Giorgia Meloni‘s Fratelli d’Italia. The knot is expected to be untied tomorrow (July 3), when, as part of ECR’s “study days” in Brucoli (Syracuse), the group’s constitutive meeting, already postponed since June 26 due to frictions between Italians and Poles over the distribution of posts, will be held.
However, Germany’s radical right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is expected to remain excluded. It emerged strengthened from the June 6-9 European election test but is still marginalized after expulsion from the ID group in May. After officially withdrawing even from the European party announced Sunday, no one has made any more openings to the 15 German MEPs within Orbán‘s new group. On the contrary, Leghist Zanni ruled out the option: “Frankly, I don’t think this will happen, as far as we, the French but also Orbán are concerned; I don’t think so.” That is why the new group “The Sovereignists” project, which has stalled for the past week, regains strength: a formation led by AfD, which could be joined by a host of small and micro extremist parties excluded by Patriots for Europe: from the pro-Russian, anti-European Bulgarians of Vazrazhdane (Rebirth) to the Polish populist ultra-right of Konfederacja, to the Spanish populist movement Se Acabó La Fiesta (The Party is Over), the Greek national-conservatives of Democratic Patriotic Movement – Victory (Nikh), the Romanian irredentists of SOS Romania, the Hungarian Our Fatherland Movement, and the Slovak neo-fascists of Republika.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
