‘Your time is over’ – far-right leaders start fight with EU mainstream

The far-right Patriots for Europe party wants to be the new ‘normal’ in Brussels and across the EU. That’s the message its leaders have conveyed in Madrid during its two-day leaders’ summit, and it’s been mapping out a strategy to take over the Socialists, Liberals and European People’s Party to carry it out.

It also seeks to very obviously replicate Trump’s “Make America Great Again” in Europe, adapting policies used in the United States and Latin America to EU member states.

Its “reconquest” of the EU will be under the banner of “Make Europe Great Again,” and its leaders say Donald Trump’s recent return to the White House signals it is time for Europe to change.

“We are living in an historic age, and my message to all the old leaders from Macron to Scholz, to your own Pedro Sanchez: It’s your time. It’s over now. They are history,” Geert Wilders, leader of the PVV party in The Netherlands told an audience of around 2,000 people on Saturday.

The Madrid summit was the first since the appointment of Spain’s Santiago Abascal as leader of the European party in December. The PfE now aims to secure majorities in national governments and EU decision-making, where only Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán currently holds a seat in the Council of the EU, representing the 27 member states.

“We have to do what Trump has told us, fight, fight, fight. We have to reconquer a Europe that is ours and that belongs to us. A Christian Europe,” André Ventura, leader of the far-right Chega party in Portugal, said.

The PfE says it is founded on national sovereignty, traditional values, and the defence of free speech and security. It consist of Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (France), Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz (Hungary), Matteo Salvini’s Lega (Italy), Geert Wilders(The Netherlands), and Andrej Babiš (Czechia), among other parties.

In the European Parliament, Patriots for Europe has 89 MEPs and is the third largest group after the European People’s Party (EPP) and the Socialists and Democrats (S&D).

“We need a return to realistic policies based on a free market and strong nation-states,” said Petr Macinka from Czechia’s Motorists for Themselves party.

Neither liberals, nor progressives, nor socialists — “only patriots can make Europe great again,” Macinka added.

Czechia’s Andrej Babiš echoed these sentiments, arguing that mainstream parties are failing the EU. “They tell us Europe will be competitive, yet they impose regulations that strangle businesses and citizens,” he said.

Ten PfE leaders also discussed strategies for dismantling the Green Deal and expanding their influence across the EU.

They also hosted Kevin Roberts, president of the American conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, and aired video messages from Venezuelan politician María Corina Machado and Argentina’s President Javier Milei.

“Patriots is a transatlantic party, but we are also open. It is not just an alliance with the North— the United States—but also with the South. That is where VOX plays a key role, bridging the connection with Milei and Peña,” VOX’s Spanish MEP Jorge Buxadé told Euronews on Friday.

Buxadé emphasised that under Santiago Abascal’s leadership, one of the party’s main goals is to support each other in winning elections. “We are no longer just the future—we are the real, immediate future,” he declared.