An international ensemble of right-wing personalities gathered in Madrid over the weekend as part of the “Europa VIVA 24” event, lending hope to the possibility of Europe’s fragmented populist right congealing before—and after—next month’s EU elections.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni appeared by video link while Hungary’s Viktor Orbán mounted the stage in person in a meeting between groups and parties from all corners of the European Right, including Polish Law and Justice (PiS) former PM Mateusz Morawiecki and Rassemblement National’s (RN) Marine Le Pen.
In the EU Parliament, conservative parties make up two different party groups: the conservative pro-Atlanticist European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, including Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, which straddles the conservative-populist camp, and the populist-antiglobalist Identity and Democracy, which is largely influenced by the French RN. Pre-election polls predict Meloni’s and Le Pen’s parties to be the largest ones in the party groups after June, in a parliament that, while expected to shift to the right, is likely to still be dominated by the centrist European People’s Party.
Sunday’s conference in Madrid focused on areas of common ground on the European front, highlighting the potential for collaboration on the other side of the elections. Setting aside divisive foreign policy issues such as Ukraine, speeches at the conference focused on fighting the EU’s Green Deal, combatting mass migration, and protecting national sovereignty, with Orbán declaring that “patriots must occupy Brussels” for the next legislative term.
Giorgia Meloni gave accolades to VOX leaders for deciding that “conservative values would always be the pillars of your lives” and said they were an example of “the only possible future for Europe. … A tired, subdued, and pampered continent that thought it could exchange identity for ideology, freedom for comfort, and now inevitably pays the price for its choices. But all is not lost. When history calls, people like us don’t hold back.”
They tried to isolate us. They tried to divide us. And they ended up strengthening us.
Argentina’s ‘anarcho-capitalist’ president Javier Milei and Israeli minister for diaspora affairs Amichai Chikli were also in attendance as the ECR launched its official campaign manifesto, promising to lead the fight against rising Eurofederalism from Brussels.
Support for Israel in its current war against Hamas was a key feature of almost every speaker on stage at Madrid’s Palacio de Vistalegre, where VOX organisers placed the number of attendees at just shy of 11,000.
President Milei triggered a mild diplomatic incident with in his speech decrying socialism as well as his remarks referring to sitting Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez’s wife Begona Gómez as ‘corrupt’—a comment that resulted in official demands for a public apology and Spain’s ambassador being recalled from Buenos Aires “for consultation.”
Already on shaky ground due to alliances with the extreme left and regional separatists, Sánchez was brought to the brink of resignation in April after one conservative trade union unearthed links to a grift scandal involving the Spanish premier’s wife.
