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.
Abascal then sent an apologetic message on social media to Meloni, expressing a “personal, political and moral bond” and promising to continue to work toward “a common historical project.”
Under the Parliament’s rules, an official grouping requires 23 MEPs from seven countries. Formal groupings of parties gain financial and procedural advantages.
Orbán has fulfilled the first requirement, with 37 MEPs. And with nationalist, anti-immigration parties from Hungary, Austria, Portugal and the Czech Republic, now joined by groups from Spain and the Netherlands, he needs only one more national party to cross the line.
Orbán has so far been rebuffed by Poland’s Law and Justice. But the FT reported on Friday that France’s National Rally (RN), Marine Le Pen’s party, was also in talks to join Orbán’s alliance.
The shifting alliances on the fractured far right come after a European election in June in which a Meloni’s group became the third largest in the Parliament, while the more extreme Identity and Democracy (ID) group came fifth. If Le Pen’s 30 MEPs join Orbán’s group, it would it would leave ID without enough members to survive.
Overall, nationalist parties now command a significant wing of the Parliament, but so far they have demonstrated little coordination.
In his message, Wilders added that he wanted to “support” Ukraine. Orbán scandalized EU leaders on Friday by visiting Moscow to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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