Sitting in a Viennese hotel, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, former Austrian Minister of Interior Herbert Kickl and Austrian MEP Harald VIlimsky announced the founding of the Patriots for Europe (P4E) political alliance on June 30.
In the matter of days, the new formation grew even more.
Right now, it unites 84 MEPs from 12 EU Members (and 3 more parties are likely to join, the notable exceptions being Germany’s notorious AfD and Italy’s Brothers of Italy). The two largest contingents are the French (30 MEPs) and the Hungarian (11 MEPs).
Its president (elected in absentia, as he was not present in Brussels on the Patriots’ snap meeting on July 8) is French National Rally leader Jordan Bardella, the 6 vice-presidents come from Hungary, Italy, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Spain, Austria, and the Netherlands, while the Chief Whip and the treasurer come from Denmark and Belgium, respectively.
As the prerequisites for establishing a political group (at least 23 MEPs from at least 7 member states) are all met, the new formation is to become the third largest group within the new European Parliament. As Jordan Bardella said it, it represented “hope for tens of millions of citizens in the European nations who value their identity, their sovereignty and their freedom. As patriotic forces, we are going to work together in order to retake our institutions and reorient policies to serve our nations and peoples.”. The new group’s “patriotic manifesto” promises “peace, security and development” and it is “determined to change the future of this Europe” (as Matteo Salvini put it).
The exact same things that prompted millions of European citizens on June 9 to remind the mainstream parties that they were not satisfied with the current status quo and that they want change.
Those parties apparently still failed to get the memo.
Doomsday scenarios about the “end of the EU as we know it” are circulated, the new grouping was declared to be an “existential threat to the EU” and alike.
Katarina Barley, a German social democrat MEP (whose party suffered a humiliating defeat on the European Parliamentary elections, reaching a meagre 13.9 percent of the votes) gave a demonstration on how the expression “democracy” is interpreted in party circles, “The firewall to the far right must stand firm. No official positions, such as committee chairs, may go to members of this group”. She went on saying, “the Orban faction must be isolated in the European Parliament”. (Ignore the fact that with the French being the biggest grouping and having a Frenchman as a president, the Patriots can be hardly considered “Orban-faction”.)
Terry Reintke (from Germany’s Grüne – who suffered a similar defeat on June 9) joined her, demanding that “this adventurous right-wing extremist movement must not be given committee chairs because its only goal is to block Europe, polarise societies, abolish the Green Deal, democracy, the rule of law and freedom of the press”.
Besides the Patriots for Europe, the European Conservatives and Reformists are also under attack for the informal deal they struck with the EPP, which would give them control of the agriculture committee. The Renew group (that shrunk to be the next parliament’s fifth largest grouping with its 76 MEPs), yet expects to lead the important LIBE committee) expressed its outrage about the “EPP preferring dirty deals instead of sticking to our common lines”.
As if the Patriots of Europe (and the ECR) wouldn’t represent the opinions of European voters, liberal and socialist MEPs all cried foul at the right-wing’s (and far-right’s) “greater opportunity to put out its message”.
As of now, parties from the centre and left are scrambling to form a cordon sanitaire, trying to block both right-wing formations from holding key positions such as committee chairmanships or Parliament vice presidency roles.
For more than five decades, the French tactic of cordon sanitaire worked mostly effectively, keeping the far-right parties away from power with forming electoral alliances between the left and the centre. And it also seemed to work for the last five years in the European Parliament.
But the cost is (was) that large swaths of voters are left feeling alienated, abandoned, and ignored, while the problems at the root of social upheaval are not addressed (and, at least in France, won’t be in the nearby future with a completely gridlocked parliament).
If anything, Europe’s nationalists all managed to build up considerable voter support (especially compared to the so-called “mainstream” parties that are now fighting tooth and nail to keep the power for themselves) in spite of being constantly ostracized. For millions of voters, these parties offer credible political programmes.
Besides, the far-left (usually used to keep such a firewall in place), though feared less than the far-right (for historical reasons) has not much less radical demands than the other end of the spectrum.
Fear-mongering (including attempts to block the far-right from gaining political positions) and hate-messages seem to be the best course of action by those desperate to stick to the status quo.
But they could undermine the very same democratic foundations they try to defend: sidestepping the democratic rules, even for the “greater good” makes people question the universality of those very norms.
