Matteo Salvini, leader of the populist “League” party and partner of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, announced on Monday that he will join the new “Patriots for Europe” group, an initiative by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, reports EFE.
Separately, a Hungarian government spokesperson announced on Monday that the National Rally (RN), the far-right party of Marine Le Pen, will join the new alliance in the European Parliament led by the Hungarian Prime Minister, according to Reuters.
There is currently no official confirmation of this information from RN. Additionally, Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, stated that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party will not be part of “Patriots for Europe.”
Last week, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO), Orban’s Fidesz party, and the populist ANO party, led by former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, formed a new alliance in the European Parliament, which announced its objectives as fighting against illegal immigration and transferring more powers from Brussels to member states.
“Today (Monday), after much work, the great group of ‘Patriots’ is born in Brussels together with the League, which will be decisive in changing the future of this Europe,” Salvini wrote in a message on social media.
He also commented on the results of the second round of the snap parliamentary elections in France, where his European ally, Marine Le Pen, finished third, despite being considered a favorite.
Salvini also wrote that “this is the first night after the elections in France, with the heterogeneous group ‘everyone against Le Pen’ built by (French President Emmanuel) Macron, which wins the elections but does not have the necessary mandates to govern.”
Changes in the European Parliament after the June elections
Salvini had already implicitly announced that both the League and Le Pen’s party intend to join Orban’s group, as he welcomed last Friday’s announcement by the Spanish far-right party Vox, which stated that it was leaving Meloni’s European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group.
“The accession of the Spaniards from Vox is a very important signal. The front for change in Europe is growing, determined to say no to (European Commission President Ursula) von der Leyen and the socialists,” said the Italian deputy prime minister.
Salvini has long called for the unity of far-right forces in Europe, where the League is part of the Identity and Democracy (ID) group, a coalition led by Marine Le Pen.
Meloni, who has supported Vox leader Santiago Abascal at several election events, has not yet commented, but on Sunday her Minister for European Affairs, Raffaele Fitto, tried to minimize the importance of this departure, assuring that it “does not change things” for ECR.
Fitto stated that Italy has “another role to play,” namely to be a key player in forming the new leadership of the European Union (EU) after the European elections in June, affirming its “strategic weight” as a founding country and the third-largest economy in the eurozone.
Since October 2022, the Italian government has been formed by a coalition of three parties from three different European families: Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, which is part of ECR, Salvini’s League, which belongs to the Identity and Democracy (ID) group, and Antonio Tajani’s Forza Italia, which is affiliated with the European People’s Party (EPP) group.
