The leader of Vox, Santiago Abascalwas appointed this Saturday as the new president of Patriots Party replace the Belgian Gérolf Annemansas this newspaper learned. European training, promoted by the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbanwas founded this summer after the elections to the European Parliament on June 9, in collaboration with the parliamentary group Patriots for Europe.
The Patriots Party is a platform that brings together parties from 13 European countries and counts among its ranks political figures such as the French Marine Le Pen (National Group) or Italian Matteo Salvini (Liga), besides Orbán, one of its greatest promoters. The parliamentary group has a total of 86 deputieswhich makes it the third group of Parliament Europeansurpassed only by the European People’s Party and the socialists.
From Vox they are satisfied with the election of Abascal at the head of the Patriots since his appointment will facilitate collaboration with other forces of similar ideology such as the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), a group composed of the Italian Prime Minister , Georgia Meloni or the Poles of Law and Justice, and which share the majority of political postulates such as the strengthening of external borders, the fight against illegal immigration or the fight against the green agenda.
In fact, during the last mandate, Vox was part of this European family, but after the new elections, he decided to leave it to join the Patriots. Despite this, Abascal said he would maintain a “privileged relationship” with the parties of REC. “Giorgia Meloni will always be a partner, friend and ally of Vox,” she said on July 8.
The parties supporting the Patriots and the ECR have been unable to create a single large supergroup within the party. European Chambera failure that Orbán himself attributed at the time to the rivalry between Le Pen and Meloni. At Vox, they are convinced that the appointment of Abascal will open the way to greater collaboration between the two groups, given the good harmony between the Spanish politician and the Italian president.
The appointment of Abascal as president of the Patriotes also comes after the victory of Donald Trump in the elections of States Joined. In Spain, Vox is the party that capitalized on the triumph of the North American tycoon, since the left supported the democratic candidate, Kamala Harriswhile the PP was equidistant from the two candidates for the Home White: Genoa’s position is that they had no counterpart in the United States to support.
The European group in which Vox is active and the one led by Meloni are the only two to have “direct link” with the new Trump administration, party sources tell this newspaper.
Third group in the EU
Le Pen’s party is, by far, the one who brings the most MEPs to the Patriots for Europea total of 30. They are followed by the Hungarians of Fidesz (11); Salvini League (8); the Action of Dissatisfied Citizens (ANO) of the Czech Republic (7); the Austrians of the FPÖ, the Dutch of Geert Wilders and Vox (6 each); the Flemish of Vlaams Belang (3), the Portuguese of Chega, the Poles of the National Movement and the Czech coalition Oath and motorists (2 each) and the Danish People’s Party, Latvia First and the Greek Voice of Reason (1 each).
In reality, the Patriots for Europe represent an evolution of the group led by Le Pen during the previous legislature, Identity and democracy. All of them defend a restrictive migration policy in the EU, the lifting of the future European ban on combustion engine vehicles and the revision of the so-called “green new deal” for the ecological transformation of the European economy.
As happened for Identity and Democracy during the last legislature, the rest of the forces applied a sort of sanitary cordonpreventing its MEPs become vice-presidents of the European Parliament or chairs of committees.
Being the third largest group in the world European Parliamentthey had two committee chairs and seven vice-chairs. However, the grand coalition of Popular, Socialists and Liberals reached an agreement to exclude them from any positions of power and therefore allocated these positions to other groups.
One of those affected was the leader of Vox in Brussels, Jorge Buxadewho aspired to become the fourth vice-president of the Environment Committee, who eventually moved to the EPP.
