Orbán, Le Pen and Co.: Europe’s Rights Join Forces – AfD is Left

The European Rights are circulating a joint letter with the “Declaration on the Future of Europe”. AfD is not allowed to participate around Jörg Meuthen.

BRUSSELS – Against further European integration, for a more nation-state: European parties across the right-wing spectrum have made it clear in a joint declaration how they view the future of the EU. According to the joint paper, “the voices of the parties concerned with the independence of the nations and the traditions of the European peoples” should not disappear in the discourse on the future of the continent, which was supported by the leading right-wing. As have been signed by Marines Le Pen and Viktor Orban, Matteo Salvini and Jaroslav Kaczynski.

A total of 16 parties from across Europe have participated in the declaration. These include, for example, the Austrian FPO, which was ousted from the government of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz following the Ibiza scandal of then-frontman Heinz-Christian Strache and punished with losses of about ten percentage points in the subsequent new election. I went. In addition to parties from Estonia, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Romania and Greece, Fidesz of the Spanish VOX, the French Resemblment Nationale, the Italian Lega von Salvini, the Polish Pis and Viktor Orban are on board. AfD, on the other hand, is missing from the circle of signatories.

In their joint strategy paper, the right-wing parties put forward the thesis that the EU will “increasingly become a tool of radical forces that seek to create a cultural, religious transformation and ultimately a stateless creation of Europe”. Your target is a “European superstate”. Instead of “mass immigration”, the signatories want a “family-friendly policy” as an answer to the “serious demographic crisis”.

Europe right under Viktor Orban unlikely to merge

The initiators themselves put an end to the fear that was spreading in Brussels in the short term that European rights might unite to form a new party family or a new faction in the EU Parliament to pool their power. . PiS representative Riszard Legutko, vice-president of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, immediately stated that there was no intention to create a new group.

Other parties in the EU-skeptical party family EKR, including the smaller party around ex-AFD boss Bernd Lacke, declared in their own statements that they wanted to remain “part of the established political spectrum”. It should also make a clear demarcation from the right-wing populist ID group, which includes the AfD in the European Parliament. Incidentally, the signature of the same AfD is missing under both the declarations.

Not among AfD signatories – Orban and Poland against “Dexit”

The fact that the German right-wing populists are not among the signatories of the declaration is due to the fact that the AFD is calling for “Dexit” in its program for the federal election. At least AFD politicians, including MEP Maximilian Krahn and Federalist Party leader Jörg Meuthen, told various media. Hungary and Poland in particular are said to have reservations about the AfD. This may also be because Poland and Hungary are the two biggest net recipients of EU money. According to the European Commission, Poland received 12 billion euros from various EU utensils in 2019, while Hungary, the second largest recipient, was able to anticipate 5.1 billion.

Although the Fidesz party under Viktor Orbán has not shied away from criticism or hostility towards Europe in the election campaign, the two extreme right-wing states benefit outright financially like no other from the European Union. If Germany left as the biggest net payer, Berlin alone transferred 14.3 billion euros to Brussels in 2019, so the confederation of states would be a substantial loss for all recipients of the EU. This could lead to significant budget cuts for the biggest net recipients, the governments of Hungary and Poland.

Enthusiasm for the decision of the AFD’s party conference is similarly small – despite all the unending skepticism against the institutions and values ​​of the EU. Jörg Meuthen regrets this. Der Spiegel quotes him with the sentence that “ethnic and fanatical libertarians” have come together and prevailed at this point. As is usually the case in frequent disputes between one party’s wing of the AFD, the other party sees it differently. The allegation comes from extreme right-wing circles of the party that the methane-laden AFD MPs in Brussels were not committed enough to join the circle of signatories.

Orbán, Le Pen, Salvini and Co. – Europe’s right-wing populists have more differences than common goals

But there are also political differences within the circle of signatories, which at first glance seem so obvious that a political and factual merger of the parties at the European level will be difficult for some time. The party of radical Matteo Salvini, the former Italian interior minister on trial for abuse of office, is said to be closer to Russia under Vladimir Putin – as is the group around French Marine Le Pen. For example, Poland follows a strict demarcation line from Russia for historical reasons.

While right-wing populist parties in Italy and Greece want other EU states to take away refugees from their shores, Hungary and Poland consistently refuse to accept people of African origin or Muslim religion. And activists in Eastern European EU countries are a thorn in the side of right-wing populists in France and Italy.

Dresden’s political scientist Hans Vorlander draws a conclusion for Der Spiegel: an amalgamation of the right in Europe has repeatedly failed and is still unlikely, as there are more divisions than unity among them. The fact that the Austrian FPO talks of a “Europe-wide large coalition” during the Joint Declaration by European right-wing populists does little to change that.

Jörg Meuthen: AFD will join right-wing parliamentary group in EU Parliament

Jörg Meuthen sees it that way. Although the AFD will probably join a new right-wing parliamentary group in Brussels, according to the leader of the AFD party, “some actors may not be interested”. Viktor Orban sees it differently. The head of the Hungarian government, who said he was the initiator of the Joint Declaration, had already announced in March in the wake of a rift between his Fidesz party and the conservative party family EPP that he wanted to establish a “democratic European right”. . It must stand together against national sovereignty, traditional values ​​and migration.

The Neue Zurcher Zeitung reports on Orban’s dinner in Brussels with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and EKR President Matteo Salvini. Orban is said to have staked his claim to lead a coalition of right-wing populists in Europe. But there are still personal interests before such an alliance. If the EU-skeptical ECR and the right-wing populist ID were to join the European Parliament, they would have 134 seats and be the third largest group. So far they have avoided doing so, which is why they have positioned themselves not only behind the conservative EPP (177 seats) and the Social Democrats (146), but also behind the liberals and centrists (98) and the Greens (73). To do. ) (Mirko Schmid)