Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán believes his Italian colleague Giorgia Meloni and Marine Le Pen of the French National Rally should join forces to create a right-wing bloc that would become the second strongest grouping in the European Parliament (EP). In an interview with French weekly Le Point, Orbán said:
The future of the sovereigntist camp in Europe, as well as of the Right in general, now rests in the hands of two women. Everything will depend on the ability of Marine Le Pen in France and Giorgia Meloni in Italy to cooperate. If they manage to work together, in a single group or a coalition, they will be a force for Europe.
Marine Le Pen, the former presidential candidate for the national-conservative National Rally (RN), and the current leader of her party’s parliamentary group in the French National Assembly, recently proposed a merger to Giorgia Meloni between the two right-wing groups in the EP: Identity and Democracy (ID) and the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR). National Rally has the largest delegation in the ID, while Meloni is the de facto leader of the ECR.
Le Pen said:
This is the moment to unite, it would be truly useful. If we manage, we will become the second group of the European Parliament. I think that we should not let an opportunity like this pass us by.
Her call follows the expulsion of the German AfD from the ID group. AfD’s lead candidate for the European election, Maximilian Krah made comments relativizing war crimes committed by SS soldiers. The party’s dismissal opens up the possibility of a closer relationship between the two right-wing groups, as members of the ECR—considered to be more moderately conservative than ID—would have refused to cooperate with the AfD which was recently designated as a “suspected extremist organisation” by a German court.
“The main obstacle to cooperation between the ECR and Marine Le Pen’s Identity and Democracy group so far has been the presence of German extremists from the AfD in the latter. This is no longer relevant since they have been excluded. I hope that Giorgia Meloni and Marine Le Pen will find a way to negotiate immediately after the elections,” Viktor Orbán said in the interview, referring to the European elections which take place next week.
The prime minister believes “the attraction of their cooperation will be very strong. It could be enough to redraw the configuration of the European Right, or even to supplant the European People’s Party,” the strongest grouping in the EP, “whose leadership has been entirely taken over by the Germans.”
Current opinion polls suggest that the centre-right-liberal European People’s Party (EPP), which Orbán’s conservative Fidesz party left in 2021 due to the EPP’s shift to the left, will remain the largest group in the Parliament. The combined seats of ECR and ID would not be enough for a new right-wing ‘supergroup’ to be throttled to second place unless Fidesz, which is currently without a parliamentary grouping, joins the ECR and adds another 10-12 MEPs. Viktor Orbán said Fidesz joining the ECR is “still on the agenda.” He added:
We want to join the ECR, but also to know clearly what its relations will be with the National Rally on the one hand, and the EPP on the other. What we need is for the opinion of right-wing voters to be reflected and collected by the Right. What we don’t want is for the EPP to continue to collect right-wing votes only to deceive them and collaborate with the Left.
Giorgia Meloni has not ruled out accepting the offer, but the EPP has also been courting her to join them instead. “My main objective is to build an alternative majority to the one that has governed in recent years. A centre-right majority—in other words—which will send the left into opposition in Europe,” she said.
What clearly distinguishes the ECR and ID is the topic of Ukraine. While member parties of the former are more Atlanticist, and fully support providing weapons to Ukraine in its fight against Russia, political forces in the latter group favour peace talks and a diplomatic solution.
Viktor Orbán addressed this topic in his interview, saying about the upcoming European elections:
Apart from the number of seats that this or that party gets, the most important thing, in my opinion, will be the number of MEPs willing to go further in the war in Ukraine and the number of those who will be in favour of putting an end to it. While I hope that pro-peace MEPs will win, I also hope for more sovereignist MEPs who support the Europe of nations.
“In ten years, these elections will likely be seen as the ones that decided peace or war in Europe,” he declared.
