The new European Parliamentary coalition of Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orbán and other leading populists, known as “European Patriots”, is now the third-largest group in the EU Parliament and the largest populist group in the EU’s history.
Following major gains across the continent in last month’s European Parliament elections, a new populist group has overtaken Giorgia Meloni’s centre-right European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and Emmanuel Macron’s neoliberal Renew Europe (RE) to become the third largest force in Brussels.
Replacing the Identity and Democracy (ID) group, the European Patriots group will be led by former French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party.
The new group of 84 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) will have just 11 more members than ID’s predecessor, but its influence will increase as its number of MEPs is reduced from 750 to 720. It will also be the largest populist bloc in the history of the EU Parliament. Guardian Reports.
It also meant that the Populist party received more votes than Meloni’s European Socialists (78) and Macron’s Socialist Party (76), and behind Ursula von der Leyen’s European People’s Party (EPP) with 188 and the Social Democrats (SD) with 136.
The group is led by rising national rally star Jordan Bardella, with Hungary’s Kinga Gal as vice-chairman.
“European Patriots represent hope for tens of millions of citizens of European countries who value their identity, sovereignty and freedom,” Bardella said. Said From Euronews.
Hungarian leader Orban Said“We do not want a European empire, we do not want a United States of Europe, we do not want grey mass control from Brussels, we do not want a command and control system. We want national sovereignty and independence under our own flag.”
Paradigm shift: Green enthusiasts and liberals are the biggest losers in Europe’s mega electionshttps://t.co/bsG24sONE8
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 10, 2024
Other key partners in the new Patriot group include Italian firebrand Matteo Salvini’s League, former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš’s ANO party, the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), Spain’s populist VOX party and Dutch kingmaker Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV). Said Patriot “will be a decisive force in changing the future of Europe”
The group could have expanded significantly, but Marine Le Pen’s decision to exclude the Alternative for Germany (AfD) from her previous populist coalition will continue, leaving the AfD’s 15 votes independent. In many cases, however, the Deutsche Party is likely to continue voting in the same way as the Patriot group, effectively strengthening its presence.
And there is still time to reshuffle the groupings before the new European Parliament meets for the first time in Strasbourg next week. Both Orban and Le Pen have been lobbying Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to form a supergroup with the center-right European Socialists and right-wing populists that could overtake the Socialists as the second-largest group in parliament.
But the right remains divided, and Mr Meloni has abandoned the hardline anti-immigration stance he initially campaigned on and appears to have grown closer to the globalist faction in Brussels, particularly European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Meloni and many in her group strongly support the continuation of the war in Ukraine, putting them at odds with Orban, who has been one of the leading voices calling for peace talks between Moscow and Kiev.
Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán has called on Italy’s Meloni to form a populist alliance with France’s Le Pen in the European Parliament… but will Meloni break with his globalist friend Ursula von der Leyen?https://t.co/zg2KhWlYqZ
— Kurt Zindulka (@KurtZindulka) June 5, 2024
