Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally party this week joined forces with the camp of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to form a powerful new far-right bloc in the EU parliament. The group, Patriots for Europe, will be led by Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s 28-year-old protégé. With 84 EU lawmakers it will be the parliament’s third-largest political group.
France's far right National Rally (RN) this week joined the Patriots for Europe bloc, an EU parliamentary group launched by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in June.
The new group, comprising 84 members from 12 countries with the RN contributing the largest share of 30 MEPs, has overtaken Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's far-right European Conservatives and Reformists bloc to become the third-largest group in the EU parliament.
At a news conference, senior officials from the new group on Monday laid out a vision of a party that opposes power being centralised in Brussels – home to the EU’s main institutions – or having “to suffer the diktats of the European Commission", the EU’s powerful executive branch.
Far-right leadership battle in Brussels
After the RN’s disappointing third-place finish in the French parliamentary elections on Sunday, RN president Jordan Bardella said that the party’s representatives at the European parliament (MEPs) would “play a full role in an important group to influence the balance of power in Europe".
In other words, while the RN has lost its bid to become the leading party in France, it intends to step up its efforts to gain influence at the European level. To this end, Bardella and Le Pen decided to join the parliamentary group launched by Orban in late June.
Orban had been deprived of much influence in the parliament since his party left the European People's Party (EPP) in 2021 and he did not belong to any EU parliamentary group until he founded Patriots for Europe.
“Orban was ostracised since his party was kicked out of the EPP, and he wanted to be less isolated,” says George Newth, a political scientist specialising in populism in Europe at the University of Bath.
The RN was not obliged to forge an alliance with Orban, the most openly pro-Putin of European leaders. Its MEPs already sat in the far-right Identity and Democracy group (ID), co-founded by the RN in 2019.
This move to join Orban’s bloc represents "a logical and clever decision” by the RN’s leaders, says Daniele Albertazzi, professor of politics at the University of Surrey, who researches right-wing populism in the European Union.
There is a keen battle in the European Parliament for leadership of the far right between Le Pen, Orban and Matteo Salvini, leader of Italy's Northern League, whose party also joined Patriots for Europe on Monday.
The three leaders are “flexing their muscles in front of Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, whose party dominates the radical right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists group (ECR)" in the EU parliament, says Newth.
The RN can now "claim de facto leadership of this new group created by the Hungarian prime minister", said Albertazzi. Indeed, with over 30 MEPs, the French far-right party is well ahead of Orban's Fidesz, which has just 11 MEPs.
This would make Bardella the leader of the third most powerful group in the European Parliament, behind the EPP (centre-right) and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (left).
In addition, Patriots for Europe has overtaken the party allied to French President Emmanuel Macron, the liberal, pro-European Renew Europe group, which has 76 MEPs.
Viktor Orban's fifth column
No wonder Bardella was eager on Sunday to stress the importance of the European Parliament for his party, given the far-right bloc’s gains in Brussels.
“This very strong eurosceptic force now can potentially challenge EU policy principles,” said Zsuzsanna Vegh, a specialist in radical populist parties in Central Europe at the German Marshall Fund, a trans-Atlantic think tank.
"It's a challenge with major consequences (for the EU)” said journalist and commentator Pierre Haski on France Inter radio. “Orban's strategy has always been to hijack the European project from within," he said.
The Patriots for Europe manifesto clearly lays out this strategy, says Périne Schir, a research fellow specialising in the French far right at George Washington University in Washington. "The aim is not to storm the European citadel, but to abolish the EU as we have it now,” says Schir.
“This means limiting the influence that the European Union can have on national policies."
This raises the question as to whether the Patriots for Europe group could become a fifth column, undermining European institutions from within.
By becoming the third-largest group, this bloc of far-right parties clearly now has a stronger voice to influence the European debate.
“Undoubtedly they have a say” in policymaking, says Georgios Samaras, a specialist in the European far right at King's College London. But they are not able to impose a veto on legislation, he says.
"It would be overstated to say they pose an existential threat to the EU yet," says Samaras.
“If you look at the dominant parties in the parliament, it’s still the centrist, liberal groups. The far right cannot create a dominant alliance,” he adds.
The European far right is not in a position "to form a majority to oppose an alliance between so-called liberal parties", agrees Newth.
But the potential for Patriots for Europe to cause trouble is growing all the same.
In the European Parliament, only officially recognised political groups can decide which issues will be debated.
"So, for example, instead of discussing the amount of aid to Ukraine, this group can ensure that the parliament debates the very principle of support for Ukraine," says Schir.
It will also be able to increase the number of debates on migration and other far-right themes.
Limited power to cause trouble
Orban had long wanted to be able to put a brake on EU decision making – notably on aid to Ukraine – according to the experts interviewed by FRANCE 24. He had lost his leverage to weigh on policymaking since his party quit the EPP group, forcing the MEPs of his Fidesz party to sit separately.
Having a powerful united bloc in the European Parliament will give the far right greater opportunity to put out its message.
Their tactic is to focus on a few issues, says Newth, like the idea of a common European heritage “based on Judeo-Christian roots” that is in need of “strong borders” to protect it.
The widely-held belief that far-right parties couldn't form an alliance at European level “is taking a hit" notes Vegh.
But the Patriots for Europe alliance has limited power to act, as the final say on such key issues as the EU’s foreign policy remains with the member states, and is not decided at the level of the European Parliament.
"We'll see what happens if the Austrian far right comes to power in the September 2024 general election, and if the ANO (Action of Dissatisfied Citizens) party wins the Czech parliamentary elections in 2025," says Vegh.
The RN's participation in Orban's Patriots for Europe does serve to clarify the position of the French far-right party on certain major issues.
"You can't claim that this group created by Viktor Orban isn't pro-Putin, for example. By joining it, the RN is sending out a clear message," says Schir.
It is difficult for Le Pen and Bardella to continue to claim that their party has no affinity with Putin's Russia.
This article has been translated from the original in French.
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