The president of Vox, Santiago Abascal, was proclaimed this Saturday president of the Patriotas party, a new European alliance led by the Hungarian Viktor Orbán, the French Marine Le Pen and the Italian Matteo Salvini, as well as other extreme groups right on the continent. The Patriots are reflected in the European Parliament in the Patriots Group (Patriots for Europe), the third largest group in the European Parliament.
Abascal’s appointment comes less than two weeks after Donald Trump’s victory in the US elections, a result that will significantly affect the balance between Washington and Brussels. Moreover, this occurs at a moment of tension within the EU, awaiting the appointment of the new Council due to pressure from the European People’s Party and a far right more represented than ever since the elections European elections last June.
The Patriots Party brings together parties from 11 European countries and has 86 MEPs in the Community Parliament, representing more than 19 million Europeans, making it the third largest group behind the European People’s Party and the socialist S&D group.
The parliamentary group was born after the last European elections from an alliance between Fidesz, the Hungarian prime minister’s party, Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPO) and the Czech populist Alliance of Dissatisfied Citizens. Also part of this alliance is Marine Le Pen’s French National Group, which, like Orbán, was present at the Paris meeting at which Abascal was elected president.
As Vox explains in a press release, the Patriotes group is configured as a fundamental political actor on the European scene and the party faces the challenge of consolidating this alternative majority to the traditional coalition of socialists and popularists.
“It is not for nothing that four of the parties integrated into the Patriots are winners of the European elections in four member states: France, Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic,” declared the Spanish party in a press release.
Vox highlighted that Abascal maintains an “excellent relationship” with other parties and leaders of the American continent which, in his opinion, “will greatly facilitate the lines of common work in the defense of the sovereignty and prosperity of nations, the mutual respect and the defense of freedom.”
