The Visegrad 4 is reportedly in talks about forming an alternative faction in Brussels—opposed to mass migration and the EU’s Green deal. The Visegrad initiative is made up of Eastern European member states, known as the V-4, and includes Czechia, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary.
A week after breaking from the Macron-dominated Renew group in the European Parliament (EP), Czech liberal-conservative populist Andrej Babiš announced that he and his ANO party are examining the possibility of creating an alternative faction in Brussels—opposed to mass migration and the EU Green Deal.
Today, additional reports say Poland’s former ruling party, conservative Law and Justice (PiS) are considering joining the new group, leaving Giorgia Meloni’s European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR). In addition to Babiš and his ANO party, PiS is reportedly in talks with the as of yet unaffiliated Hungarian Fidesz party, as well as Janez Janša’s Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS, currently EPP). The latter, however, remains in question; SDS MEP Romana Tomc called the talks “fake news.”
“It’s quite obvious that we could be united on a geographical platform and not [an] ideological platform. I’m less and less interested in all those ideological elements of the jigsaw,” Polish former PM Mateusz Morawiecki (PiS) told Politico. He said he is in talks with others as well, including Lithuania’s Waldemar Tomaszewski—but not Robert Fico’s Slovakian Smer party; at least not yet. Slovak President Peter Pellegrini said on Wednesday the Smer party is looking to rejoin the Socialists & Democrats (S&D)
Losing PiS would deal a serious blow to the ECR group. The Polish conservatives would make up the second largest contingent of the group with 20 MEPs after Fratelli d’Italia’s 24.
Emerging a strong first in European elections this month, Andrej Babiš, a prominent business magnate who governed as Czechia’s prime minister until 2021, has moved in a decidedly right-wing direction over the past year, with strong opposition to the EU Migration Pact, labelling the legislation “insane and monstrous.”
In a TV interview, Babiš said his ANO party left the federalist Renew group due to ideological and factional disputes with Macronist liberals, saying that his party was now aiming to “fight illegal migration” and “change the Green Deal”—in contrast to their former liberal colleagues. The Czech leader also spoke at the CPAC conference in Hungary in April calling for alliances of sovereignist states.
Horse-trading is ongoing in Brussels and other European capitals regarding the makeup of the next EP, with each prospective group needing a minimum of 23 MEPs from seven member states to register. Parliamentary factions are currently in flux following advances for the populist Right at the expense of European greens and Macronist liberals in Renew.
