Hungarian PM and new parliamentary alliance in EU
Who wins?

INTERVIEWS  05 July 2024 - 17:11

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has announced the intention to form a new parliamentary alliance in the EU along with Austria's far-right party and ex-Prime Minister Andrej Babis' Czech centrist group.

“We take responsibility to launch this new platform and new faction. I would like to make it clear that this is our goal,” the prime minister said at a joint press conference with leader of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) Herbert Kickl and Babis from the ANO (Czech political movement), calling on other parties to support him, Türkiye’s Hürriyet Daily News reports.

The new alliance, announced as Patriots for Europe, must be supported by the parties from four other countries to be recognised as a group in the European Parliament.

“A new era begins and the first, perhaps decisive moment of this new era is the creation of a new European political faction that will change European politics,” Orbán said.

He said that the three men signed a “patriotic manifesto” promising “peace, security and development” instead of the “war, migration and stagnation” brought by Brussels elites.

If they manage to create such an alliance in the European Parliament, will this change the EU's foreign policy? Which directions of the European policy will be changed?

The European experts expressed their views for Caliber.Az.

Polish analyst and professor at the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies at Nicolaus Copernicus University of Torun Roman Backer has said that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has created a new coalition in the European Parliament, but this is not a faction (political group) yet.

“It is necessary to have 23 MPs from 1/4 of the member states (i.e., seven member states) to create such a faction. Other parties (the Polish party with Jarosław Kaczynski, the Slovak party with Robert Fico, the Slovenian party with Janez Janša) did not join the new group,” the professor noted.

He noted that there are no signs that Orban will be able to create a faction by the time when no vacant positions in the entire structure of the European Parliament are left.

“The only distinguishing feature of these three parties, besides the natural hostility towards all other EU politicians, is a clear reluctance to support Ukraine,” Backer said.

“All other factions in Europe, including Meloni in Italy, hold a more or less solid pro-Ukrainian position. The alliance consisting of these three parties initiated by Orban will be marginalised in the European Parliament for a long time,” he added.

Analyst, publisher and editor-in-chief of the Neue Zeiten magazine and the YouTube Neue Zeiten TV channel (Germany) Alexander Cherkassky noted that, firstly, according to the parliamentary regulations, the status of a faction with all privileges can be registered if the faction has MPs from seven countries.

“The Polish Law and Justice party and possible partners from Slovenia and Slovakia may join the faction. The like-minded parties from other countries may also join. Such a faction may become the second largest faction in the European Parliament and gain significance as a result of successful attempts to create a far-right international party,” Cherkassky noted.

However, observers say that this is unlikely to happen due to the fragmentation of such parties and because each of them defends primarily its own interests,” the German analyst noted.

Head of the board of Ukraine’s Eastern Europe Security Institute Anatoliy Pinchuk said that the Patriots for Europe alliance is an attempt to create a separate political group in the EU, based on the fact that the parties that initiated its creation have 24 MPs, with 23 minimum required MPs.

“Firstly, there is another condition - seven countries. That is, they should join four more parties, and so far there are no real candidates except Fico’s party in Slovakia,” Pinchuk said.

“Moreover, the matter also rests in some right-wing political spectrum to prevent the dominance of the leading European People's Party. This association is unlikely to have a significant impact on the EU policy. I think that the weak link in this alliance may be the Czech side, which is not radically right,” he added.

Caliber.Az