Sovereignists, Strong, Ready for Action – Here are the Patriots who have joined forces for Europe!

The heart of the Patriots is the Austrian-Hungarian-Czech Central European cooperation, which also welcomes the Poles, Slovenes, and Slovaks. Led by Le Pen’s French National Alliance, expanding with the Spanish, Italians, and Dutch, they cover almost the entire Europe.

Main image: Press conference after the founding session of the Patriots for Europe party group in the European Parliament building in Brussels on July 8, 2024. Photo: MTI / Bodnár Boglárka

It is no longer just a vision, but reality: the Patriots for Europe faction has been formed and has taken its seat in the European Parliament, the third largest political group in the EP, consisting of 84 representatives from 15 parties in 12 countries.

The Patriots for Europe faction is the third largest political group in the EP.

The representatives are sovereignists, strong, ready for action, and not discouraged by the cold reception given to them by the left-wing factions that make up the majority of the European Parliament, along with the European People’s Party (EPP): they have been sealed off behind the so-called cordon sanitaire. This institution, which goes against every democratic principle, means that although at the beginning the EP distributes vice-presidential and committee chair positions according to the faction’s share of mandates, after the distribution, each candidate must be voted on separately by the representatives, and the European People’s Party, the Party of European Socialists (S&D), the Left (GUE/NGL), the Greens-European Free Alliance, and the liberal Renew Europe decided they would not give any (!) EP vice-presidential positions to the 187 representatives to the right of the EPP, who make up more than a quarter of the parliament. In the second round, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) two candidates, Latvian Roberts Zīle and Italian Antonella Sberna, narrowly slipped through, but the Patriots and the Sovereign Nations of Europe (ESN) representatives did not receive the two and one vice-presidential positions they were entitled to according to their share. A candidate from a far-left, Israel-hostile group half the size of the Patriots, Younous Omarjee from Reunion Island, could be an EP vice president – and he was unanimously voted in by the EPP as Israel-friendly. The same undemocratic treatment was received by the Patriots and the ESN when allocating committee chair positions, however, even the ECR did not fare much better: they could appoint two committee chairs, but despite requesting the chair of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), which produces dozens of reports against Hungary, they were humiliatingly ousted by the factions to the left of the People’s Party. The same pattern can be seen in the Meloni faction in the parliament, as in the case of Ursula von der Leyen’s re-election: the people’s party makes promises to Meloni’s group left and right, but at the crucial moment, it acts according to the interests of the left, and during cooperation with the ECR, ensures that the conditions for the right-wing are as humiliating as possible.

The distribution of positions around the formation of the EP immediately illustrated what the patriots had sworn to change: the internal sharing of the European mainstream during the allocation of resources and policy decisions, from which representatives of tens of millions of European voters are excluded, even though in several member states, the parties behind the cordon sanitaire wield the country’s largest political power – only in the case of the Patriot member parties in four countries, France, the Netherlands, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, does this situation exist, the first two countries being net contributors, and the Dutch and Hungarian parties also being the largest governing parties in their respective countries.

FPÖ, the Austrian election favorite

The heart of the Patriots is a Central European cooperation between the strongest parties in Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Austria. Therefore, one of Fidesz’s closest allies within the new European party family is the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), which has six mandates and currently leads Austria’s political scene with 27% in opinion polls. Our neighbor will hold elections at the end of September, which the FPÖ is likely to win. The question, of course, is what will come of this. They could most likely form a government with the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), as everyone else is reluctant to form a coalition with them. However, there are numerous conditions for an FPÖ-ÖVP coalition to be fulfilled; most notably that ÖVP must come third after FPÖ and the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ), or that a grand coalition between ÖVP and SPÖ is not numerically possible at all. Even in this case, it is likely that the extremely popular president of the FPÖ, Herbert Kickl, cannot become chancellor, and the Freedom Party must come up with another candidate for coalition. However, this does not change the essence: there is every chance that in September, they will win the election in Austria and potentially come to power. In addition, an important development regarding the FPÖ is that while they previously moved as a united front with the German Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, they are now in separate factions – finally separating the Austrian, right-wing, governance-capable, coalition-viable, and socially open part of the German-speaking Europe right from the chaotic, internally warring, and ungovernable German pole.

Janša’s winning party should leave the European People’s Party to be part of the Patriots

Harald Vilimsky, leader of the FPÖ European parliamentary delegation, recently told Heimatkurier that the Patriots faction “will decisively stand against EU centralism, and will make politics for the nations and peoples of Europe. As the third-largest faction, they will have a decisive influence on the European political agenda and will fight against left-wing ideological madness.” In response to our inquiry, Vilimsky said that their goal for a long time has been to “form a broader and larger patriotic faction, which can have a greater influence on political decisions at the European level,”, and this is a step forward for the Patriots from the ID faction, from which the FPÖ originates. The Freedom Party’s delegation leader believes that, although it is difficult to change things in European politics, “the establishment in Brussels is in a stranglehold” due to the new faction of patriots, and that Ursula von der Leyen’s charm offensive with the Greens and the Left “will not be without consequences within the EPP ranks”. He believes that the fact that the ECR, the Patriots, and the ESN together are almost as large as the EPP will exert immense pressure on the people’s party, and this could lead to “a reconsideration and implementation of majority relationships” – in other words, a right-wing majority will form on certain issues in the European Parliament.