VIENNA, June 30, (AP): Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Sunday presented a new alliance with Austria's far-right Freedom Party and the main Czech opposition party, which hopes to attract other partners and become the biggest right-wing group in the European Parliament.
Orbán traveled to Vienna to present the "Patriots for Europe” alliance of his Fidesz party with the Freedom Party and former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš's ANO party, a day before Hungary takes over the European Union’s rotating presidency for six months.
The European Parliament elections in early June strengthened hard-right parties overall, though their performances varied from country to country, but left unclear to what extent they would manage to work together. Until now, they have been spread across two groups in the EU legislature, plus a large number of unaligned parties.
Orbán in recent years has appeared to relish opportunities to block, water down or delay key EU decisions, routinely going against the grain of most other leaders on issues like the war in Ukraine, relations with Russia and China, and efforts to defend democracy and the rule of law. His public opposition to EU policies and stances has long frustrated other governments in the bloc and pushed him to the margins of the continent’s mainstream.
"What Europeans want is three things: peace, order and development,” Orbán said through an interpreter at Sunday's event. "And what they are getting from the elite in Brussels today is war, migration and stagnation.”
"Our objective is, and we believe that this will happen, that in a short time, this will be the strongest right-wing group in the European Parliament,” Orbán said.
The trio would need to attract lawmakers from at least four more EU countries to successfully form a group in the new parliament.