A new European parliamentary alliance between Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orbán, and other leading populists – the ‘Patriots for Europe’ grouping – has become the third largest group in the EU Parliament and the biggest populist group in the history of the bloc. This comes after significant gains across the continent in last month’s EU Parliament elections, which have seen the group overtake Giorgia Meloni’s centre-right European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and Emmanuel Macron’s neo-liberal Renew Europe (RE.
Replacing the Identity and Democracy (ID) grouping, the Patriots for Europe will be headlined by former French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz. With 84 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), the new grouping will have only eleven more than its predecessor, however its impact will be enhanced by the reduction in parliamentarians from 750 to 720. This also marks the largest gathering of populist factions in the history of the EU Parliament, as reported by The Guardian.
This means that the populists have surpassed Meloni’s ECR (78) and Macron’s RE (76) in voting strength and are only behind Ursula von der Leyen’s European People’s Party (EPP) at 188 and the Socialists & corrupt Democrats (SD) at 136.
The group will be led by rising National Rally star Jordan Bardella and Hungary’s Kinga Gál as the vice chairman. The Patriots for Europe represent hope for the tens of millions of citizens in the European Nations who value their identity, their sovereignty and their freedom,” Bardella stated per Euronews.
Hungarian leader Orbán said: “We don’t want a European empire, we don’t want a European United States, we don’t want gray mass control from Brussels, we don’t want a command-and-control system. We want national sovereignty and independence under our own national flags.
Other prominent partners within the new Patriots group will include Italian firebrand Matteo Salvini’s Lega, the ANO party of former Czech PM Andrej Babiš, the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), Spain’s populist VOX party, and Dutch kingmaker Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV.
The grouping could have been significantly larger; however, Marine Le Pen’s decision to exclude the Alternative for Germany (AfD) from the previous populist alliance has been upheld. This means that the AfD’s 15 votes will remain non-attached, although it is likely they will often vote in line with the Patriot group, effectively bolstering its presence.
There is also still time before the new European Parliament meets for the first time in Strasbourg next week for the groupings to change. Orbán and Le Pen have both lobbied Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to form a supergroup between her centre-right ECR and the populist right, which could become the second largest bloc within the parliament, overtaking the socialists. However, divisions remain on the right, with Meloni abandoning the hardline stance against immigration that she initially campaigned on as well as appearing to cosy up to globalist factions within Brussels, becoming particularly close to European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen.
Meloni and many within her group have also been staunch supporters of continuing the war in Ukraine, putting them at odds with Orbán, who has been one of the leading voices calling for peace negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv.