(CN) — The emergence of a powerful new political group in Brussels on the extreme right, led by France's Marine Le Pen and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, is shaking up European politics.
Patriots for Europe officially launched Monday, just over a week after Orbán and like-minded allies in Czechia and Austria announced its formation.
In terms of seats in the European Parliament, it likely will surpass far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's kindred national-conservative group, the European Conservatives and Reformists, to become the third-biggest faction in Brussels, delivering a setback in Meloni's efforts to present herself as Europe's foremost radical-right leader.
The birth of the Patriots for Europe is serving as a vehicle to reunite and reboot an embattled and fragmented far-right movement that experienced both recent electoral highs and lows at national and European ballots — most recently with Le Pen's major setback in French legislative elections on Sunday.
The new coalition largely replaces and re-brands a political faction in the European Parliament called Identity and Democracy, which has been the most radical right-wing camp in Brussels with its vehement opposition to the EU's immigration, green and social policies and the push to centralize powers in Brussels.
In many ways, the Patriots for Europe can be seen as a political triumph for Orbán. It helps bring the divisive authoritarian-leaning Hungarian leader back into the thick of EU politics. After being cast out of the main conservative group in Brussels, his Fidesz party members in the European Parliament have not been aligned with any group since March 2021.
Fidesz won 10 of Hungary's 21 seats in the parliament.
“For the Orbán government and the Fidesz party, it certainly is a success, or will be framed as one,” said Gabriela Greilinger, an expert on Hungarian politics at the University of Georgia in the United States. “It’s a huge success to now be part of a new group, especially one that is seemingly going to be the third-biggest one in the European Parliament.”
Along with announcing his new political project, Orbán has taken center stage in Europe after Hungary's turn to head the Council of the European Union took effect on July 1.
Every six months, a different EU state is handed the reins to set the EU's policy agenda. In taking the helm, Hungary caused consternation by using the motto “Make Europe Great Again” for its presidency, an obvious allusion to former U.S. President Donald Trump.
There was even discussion of taking the unprecedented step of blocking Orbán from holding the presidency.
On Friday, Orbán outraged many of his European counterparts by holding talks over Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, three days after he went to Kyiv to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. On Monday, Orbán was in Beijing to visit Chinese President Xi Jinping on what he dubbed was the third stage in his “peace mission.”
Orbán's most dramatic challenge to the EU mainstream may come with this new political group, but it's likely to remain on the sidelines of decisionmaking in Brussels: Europe's mainstream political groups refuse to collaborate with the far right, especially those with views deemed to be pro-Russia.
Still, the Patriots for Europe have grown quickly. They are poised to become the third-largest group in the European Parliament with about 84 seats. Only the big-tent centrist groups on the right and left, the European People's Party and the Socialists and Democrats, would be bigger when the parliament convenes later this month.
Over the past week, the Patriots for Europe have added several far-right parties to its ranks, including Le Pen's National Rally in France on Monday, Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, Matteo Salvini's League in Italy, the Danish People's Party, Portugal's Chega and the Flemish Vlaams Belang in Belgium. All these switched from Identity and Democracy.
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