Orbán-Babiš alliance opens ‘new opportunities’ for German far-right

With a new far-right group, including Victor Orbán’s Fidesz party, on the horizon, the German far-right AfD has hopes of breaking out of potential isolation in the European Parliament after being kicked out of their previous group, ID.

On Sunday (30 June), the populist and nationalist parties of Austria and Hungary, together with the populist Czech party ANO of former prime minister Andrej Babiš, announced the intention to form a new parliamentary group based on a new alliance called the “Patriots for Europe”.

A spokesperson of AfD co-leader Alice Weidel told ntv that “this opens up new opportunities for the AfD to cooperate with other parties, as the party landscape of the ECR and ID as a whole is on the move.”

Parliament groups of hard-right conservatives (ECR) and the far-right ID are both undergoing deep changes: The former is gathering additional members but is still to be confirmed this week as the third-largest group in the Parliament.

Meanwhile, ID is struggling to keep up, with its largest delegation Rassemblement National rumoured, last week, to be leaving the ID group as well.

Originally, Marine Le Pen’s far-right party was the main initiator to oust the AfD from the ID, as they have not been on good terms for quite some time.

The Austrian far-right FPÖ, now a member of the far-right ID, is a co-founder of the new alliance.

If they manage to form a new group together with the Hungarian far-right Fidesz and Babiš’ ANO, they would exit the ID, leaving their old group in danger of dissolution, as they would drop below the seven national delegation threshold, after previously ousting the AfD last month.

For AfD delegation leader René Aust, who so far had difficulties in forming a group on his own, “everything is [now] in flux.” “It’s going to be an exciting two weeks,” he told ZDF on the sidelines of the party federal conference this weekend.

During their conference, Weidel said in front of journalists that a decision about any future group has not been made yet.

A pre-requirement for her is that “no antisemites” are part of such a group.

The German party has close relations with Herbert Kickl’s FPÖ, who lobbied heavily for the AfD to be admitted back into their former far-right ID group.

Relations with Hungarian leader Victor Orbán, however, are more difficult. The co-founder of the new “Patriots for Europe” previously stated that it is unclear whether the AfD is for or against Europe.

This might change now, as the Germans have been searching for new allies in the European Parliament.

While the ten-year-old party achieved its highest nationwide voting percentage of 15.9%, it fell short of some polls predicting up to 23% at the beginning of the election campaign, as multiple scandals rocked the AfD.

Additionally, the party base was split on how to deal with their lead candidate, Maximilian Krah.

Shortly after Krah stated that not each member of the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) during the Third Reich was “automatically a criminal”, his EU delegation got kicked out of the ID group.

Voters loyal to Krah, who was not accepted back into the delegation, voiced their criticism, especially after the hopes to be accepted back into the ID group failed.

In turn, the federal party conference of the AfD itself was highly anticipated as the EU election campaign brought controversy from within the party to light.

However, the conference in Essen went relatively smoothly, without major public confrontations among the different camps, as the party focused their resentment against some former European allies.

In his opening speech, co-leader Tino Chrupalla addressed previous criticism of being too extremist for the ID by stating that the party does not “want melonisation”, about Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Fratelli d’Italia (FdI) moving closer to the political centre after taking on a governing role in Italy.

“We must not tolerate interference in our affairs from France or Italy,” he added.

On Sunday, the party decided to formally exit the ID party, of which – in contrast to the parliamentary group – the AfD was still a member.

(Kjeld Neubert | Euractiv.de, Edited by Aurélie Pugnet)

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