Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced in Vienna on Sunday an alliance with populist parties from Austria and the Czech Republic at the EU level, dubbed Patriots for Europe, to form a new far-right group in the European Parliament.
The Patriots for Europe grouping draws in Orbán's Fidesz party, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and the Czech Republic's Action of Dissatisfied Citizens, commonly known as ANO (Yes), should soon gain more members and become the "largest group of right-wing forces in Europe," the Fidesz leader said.
"Then the sky is the limit," said Orbán, whose country takes over the rotating EU Council presidency on Monday until the end of the year.
Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from at least four other EU states would be needed to form a parliamentary group.
The new cooperation raises the question of how the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which was recently expelled from the right-wing European Identity and Democracy (ID) group, will now behave towards this alliance.
"This alliance is intended to be a carrier rocket," FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl said.
ANO leader and former Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš, explained that the new group in the European Parliament would primarily focus on the defence of national sovereignty vis-à-vis the EU, the fight against illegal migration and the reversal of the climate measures of the European Green Deal.
The FPÖ and ANO, both parties of the opposition, and the ruling right-wing populist Fidesz received the most votes in the European Parliament elections in their respective countries.
Fidesz has 11 MEPs in the new European Parliament, ANO seven and the FPÖ six. In total, they now have 24 of the 705 representatives in the EU body.
Elections to the European Parliament were held at the beginning of June. Until 2021, Fidesz was in the centre-right European People's Party (EPP) when Orbán withdrew from this political bloc. Since then, his party has not been part of any official political groups.
The FPÖ was previously part of the ID group, together with France's far-right nationalist National Rally (RN) and the now excluded AfD. Babiš recently announced his party's withdrawal from the liberal Renew Europe group.
