Two new far-right groups are emerging in the European Parliament. The founder of the second is the prime minister of Hungary and the leader of the Fidesz party Viktor Orbán,the second is driven by the German AfD party.
On Thursday, Orbán’s political advisor announced the new Fidesz group Balázs Orbán, according to which the new group will be officially announced next Thursday, July 4th. The new group based on AfD has been widely reported in the international media.
According to experts, the more interesting of the two is Viktor Orbán’s new group. At least the former prime minister of the Czech Republic is about to join it Andrej Babišin led by the ANO party and possibly the former Prime Minister of Slovenia Janez Janšan led by the Democratic Party of Slovenia.
According to media reports, the group based on the AfD is joined by the Spanish Se Acabó La Fiesta, the Greek national conservative NIHK and the Romanian nationalist populist party SOS Romania.
What makes the situation interesting is that the former Polish prime minister’s Law and Justice party has said that it is considering joining Viktor Orbán’s new group.
“We are attracted by both this new group and ECR. The probability of a change is 50/50. It is not guaranteed that we will stay in the ECR”, Leader of the Law and Justice Party, former Prime Minister of Poland Mateusz Morawiecki comment this week online magazine for Politico.
Law and Justice is currently the second largest party in the ECR Group of the European Parliament, after the Italian Prime Minister’s Party Fratelli d’Italia. According to the experts interviewed by Politico, Viktor Orbán’s new group of MEPs may hit particularly hard precisely on the powerful figure of the ECR group, the Prime Minister of Italy Giorgia Meloniin.
If Law and Justice changes group in the European Parliament, ECR will lose its position as the third largest group. It undermines Meloni’s claims about ECR’s weight and negotiating position.
Meloni and Orbán are old allies. The difference between the two is now, however, that the ECR group expanded last week with new members from five different countries, including the Danish Democrats, the Bulgarian ITN party, the Lithuanian LVŽS party, and the Romanian AUR party. Joining the AUR party was too much for Orbán, who had previously agreed with Melon about Fidesz joining the ECR.