BUDAPEST (Reuters) -Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) will join a growing new alliance in the European Parliament led by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Hungary’s government spokesperson said on Monday.
The new group led by Orban’s Fidesz, dubbed Patriots for Europe, is due to make an official party announcement in Brussels on Monday afternoon, with Italy’s League also saying it would join.
Patriots will form a new group in the European Parliament as the third largest bloc in a challenge to the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), which supports Ursula von der Leyen for a second term as European Commission President.
To form a new political grouping, 23 MEPs are needed who represent at least a quarter of EU member states.
“At 1400 CET (1200 GMT), we will form a new group with 12 nationalities and 84 parliamentarians (MEPs), creating the third largest in the European Parliament and ahead of the ECR…The presidency will be French if everyone agrees,” MEP Jean-Paul Garraud of the RN told Reuters.
The RN suffered a blow to its ambitions when it finished in third place in elections to the French National Assembly on Sunday.
Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPO), Fidesz and the populist Czech ANO party led by Andrej Babis had already agreed to join forces, citing the fight against illegal immigration, as well as transferring more powers from Brussels back to member states as the new alliance’s goals.
“After a lot of work, the large Patriots group is born together with the League in Brussels, which will be decisive in changing the future of this Europe,” League leader Matteo Salvini wrote on X.
The Patriots bloc is leapfrogging the ECR group led by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is allied with the League in domestic politics.
Meloni was dealt a blow to her own alliance efforts after Spain’s far-right party Vox left her bloc last week. However, Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) will not join the new Patriots alliance.
Orban’s party is pushing to strengthen its presence at the European level after Hungary’s opposition party, Tisza, said it joined the EPP last month.
(Reporting by Boldizsar Gyori, Crispian Balmer and Elizabeth Pineau, additional reporting by Julia Payne in Brussels; Editing by Keith Weir)
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