Le Pen and Orban’s parties form an ultras group that becomes third force in European Parliament European elections 2024 | News

The extremist forces most sympathetic to Russia, the Hungarian Viktor Orbán, the French Marine Le Pen and the League of Matteo Salvini, have formed an alliance to become the third force of a very fragmented European Parliament. This Monday, one of the ultra families in the European Parliament, Identity and Democracy (ID), died and another, Patriots for Europe, was born. The new formation, drawn mainly from the groups that make up ID, is made up of more than 80 MEPs from 12 countries from parties such as the Spanish Vox or the Dutch of Geert Wilders. That association numbers more than the Renew liberals, who were in that position until their fall in the European elections in June, and the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) which includes the Brothers of Italy, a party with neo-fascist roots led by the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, who aspired to the third parliamentary force platform.

Patriots for Europe, a project launched a week ago by the coalition Dissatisfied Citizens of the national-populist Orbán, leader of Fidesz, the Austrian Party of Freedom (FPÖ) and former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, brings together a good number of Eurosceptic and even Europhobic forces. With these positions, they want to influence the policies of the European Parliament and try to block the progress of the European integration project. Its official constitution in Brussels this Monday comes amid great concern in European capitals about Orbán and Hungary’s role as rotating president of the EU Council and the visits of the Hungarian leader – to Moscow to meet Vladimir Putin and to China to meet Xi Jinping for his alleged mission for peace in Ukraine for which he has no European mandate.

Le Pen’s National Regrouping (RN) – the largest force within the group, with 30 MEPs after the June 9 European elections that led to the call for early elections in France – aware of the Patriots’ family’s affinity with Russia and Vladimir Putin, has waited to join the group until after the French elections this Sunday, in which ultra forces already saw Le Pen’s dolphin, MEP Jordan Bardella, sit in the prime minister’s chair. However, it has remained only the third political force in the French Assembly, thanks to the encirclement by the left of an important part of the traditional center-right (mainly the parties united around Macron).

“The 30 MEPs of the French National Rally will play their role fully in a large group that will influence the balance of power in Europe, rejecting the flood of immigrants, punitive environmentalism and the seizure of our sovereignty,” he launched on Sunday night, according to Bardella. The candidate for prime minister was clearly upset by the French election result and called for an “unnatural” alliance of the center and left to form a bulwark against his anti-immigration, xenophobic and Europhobic party, which could try to repeat itself in the European Parliament.

Bardella has been elected president of the group, despite being absent from the constituent meeting this Monday. There will be six vice-presidents (one of them, Hermann Tursch, an MEP from Vox). However, the position of first vice-president corresponds to the Hungarian Kinga Gal from Fidesz, the second party by number of seats.

The unknown, European parliamentary sources point out, is what the actual impact of the Patriots will be, whether the various ultra-nationalist parties will be able to work together or whether they will break up at some point during the legislature due to their differences and the fact that someone pulls away. Its predecessor, the ID – which included the Alternative for Germany (AfD), expelled from the European Chamber over its leader’s scandal over the historical memory of Nazism, and a group that included Orbán’s Fidesz (which, without him, belonged to the European People’s Party) – has always been viewed with great suspicion by the rest of the European Parliament, even by the other eurosceptic group, the ECR.

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In fact, the traditional practice in the European Parliament has been to form a circle around ID, which in 2014 called itself Europe of Nations and Freedom, when it came to distributing positions and to exclude its MEPs. This does not happen with the other right-wing bloc, which still includes the Polish ultra-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) and Giorgia Meloni’s party, which is however losing strength due to the exodus of many of its members (such as Vox, with six MEPs). Separating their positions could benefit even more ultras.

Recycle toxic IDs now

The steps taken to form Patriots for Europe this Monday were staged over eight days. Orbán first launched the idea together with Austrian radicals and the Czechs of former Prime Minister Babis, an organization that until recently was part of the liberals of Renew and which has been in an illiberal drift for several years. Later, more structures joined (Vox did so on Friday). By this weekend it became clear that the new group would represent a 3.0 version of ID since by now practically all parties were in it, including Marine Le Pen’s 30 French MEPs, which became the largest delegation. However, a European source says that Identity and Democracy has become “toxic” for some people after the AfD scandal. Some statements by its main candidate for the European elections, Maximilian Krah, whitewashed the Nazi SS, which prompted this German party to be expelled from the European group.

Patriotas easily meets the conditions needed to be a parliamentary group in the European Parliament (at least 23 MEPs from at least seven countries). As of this Monday’s numbers – the data can move around throughout the legislature, although they must meet the necessary requirements at all times – there are 84 MPs from a dozen countries.

According to the delegations, the majority force is French. However, Orbán’s Hungarians have gained considerable prominence, both because of the formation process and their size. With 11 MPs, they are the second largest in the group.

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