Dutch, Spanish Parties Join Orban’s Patriots for Europe Far-Right Alliance

The Patri­ots for Europe far-right alliance has gained cru­cial momen­tum as Dutch and Span­ish nation­al­ist par­ties announce their inten­tion to join Hun­gar­i­an Prime Min­is­ter Vik­tor Orban’s new polit­i­cal group­ing. On 6 July 2024, Politi­co report­ed that these moves bring Orban to the brink of form­ing an offi­cial Euro­pean Par­lia­ment group that could reshape the con­ti­nen­t’s far-right polit­i­cal land­scape and poten­tial­ly weak­en Ital­ian Prime Min­is­ter Gior­gia Mel­oni’s com­pet­ing alliance. The arti­cle begins:

The lead­ers of the Dutch and Span­ish far-right par­ties plan to join the new right-wing alliance being formed by Hun­gar­i­an Prime Min­is­ter Vik­tor Orbán. The moves would leave Orbán on the brink of gain­ing enough mem­bers to form an offi­cial new group on the far right of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment — and poten­tial­ly saps the pow­er of Ital­ian Prime Min­is­ter Gior­gia Mel­oni, who has lost mem­bers of her own group­ing to Orbán’s Patri­ots for Europe. The Nether­lands’ Geert Wilders said Fri­day he want­ed his Par­ty for Free­dom to join the Patri­ots for Europe group, to “pro­tect our Judeo-Chris­t­ian her­itage. And our fam­i­lies.” Spain’s Vox leader, San­ti­a­go Abas­cal, told La Gac­eta that his par­ty would also join Orbán’s alliance, with­draw­ing from Mel­oni’s Euro­pean Con­ser­v­a­tives and Reformists.

          Read more: https://www.politico.eu/article/netherlands-spain-far-right-viktor-orban-patriots-for-europe-hungary/

Key Points

• Orban’s Patri­ots for Europe already has 37 MEPs from Hun­gary, Aus­tria, Por­tu­gal and Czech Repub­lic, meet­ing the numer­i­cal requirement
• Offi­cial EU Par­lia­ment group for­ma­tion requires 23 MEPs from sev­en coun­tries, with Orban need­ing just one more nation­al party
• Spain’s Vox with­draw­al from Mel­oni’s Euro­pean Con­ser­v­a­tives and Reformists weak­ens the Ital­ian PM’s com­pet­ing far-right alliance
• France’s Nation­al Ral­ly with 30 MEPs is report­ed­ly in talks to join, which could elim­i­nate the Iden­ti­ty and Democ­ra­cy group

Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance Reshapes Euro­pean Par­lia­ment Dynamics

The Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance (GNCA) has emerged as a robust transna­tion­al net­work con­nect­ing right-wing and far-right polit­i­cal forces across Europe, pro­pelled by a shared com­mit­ment to nation­al sov­er­eign­ty, tra­di­tion­al val­ues, and resis­tance to supra­na­tion­al gov­er­nance. At the cen­ter of this move­ment, Hungary’s Vik­tor Orbán plays a piv­otal role, with his par­tic­i­pa­tion in events such as the high-pro­file Patri­ots Ral­ly in France along­side Marine Le Pen sym­bol­iz­ing the alliance’s ambi­tion to bridge Amer­i­can and Euro­pean nation­al­ist cur­rents. With­in the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment, this ide­o­log­i­cal momen­tum is insti­tu­tion­al­ized through groups like the Euro­pean Con­ser­v­a­tives and Reformists (ECR), while the sus­pen­sion of Orbán’s Fidesz from larg­er par­lia­men­tary blocs under­scores the shift­ing dynam­ics and inter­nal tensions.

The GNCA’s oper­a­tional mod­el is char­ac­ter­ized by ide­o­log­i­cal con­ver­gence on cul­tur­al preser­va­tion and anti-immi­gra­tion poli­cies, as well as prac­ti­cal col­lab­o­ra­tion across borders—often facil­i­tat­ed by think tanks, media net­works, and inten­si­fied lob­by­ing efforts, evi­denced by the dra­mat­ic increase in US-linked con­ser­v­a­tive activism tar­get­ing EU insti­tu­tions. Con­cur­rent­ly, par­ties such as Germany’s AfD and Romania’s AUR lever­age dig­i­tal dis­in­for­ma­tion and Krem­lin-aligned mes­sag­ing to chal­lenge EU inte­gra­tion and ampli­fy nation­al­ist nar­ra­tives, fur­ther entrench­ing the alliance’s pres­ence in Brus­sels and beyond.

Exter­nal References:

1. Euro­pean Con­ser­v­a­tives and Reformists Group

2. Spelling out the Euro­pean cen­ter-right’s dilem­ma: Renew­al of the grand coali­tion or nation­al-con­ser­v­a­tive alliance

3. The nation­al con­ser­vatism is spread­ing – Mod­ern Diplomacy

Disclaimer

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.