Pundit on new alliance in EP: Babiš is no longer pretending to be liberal
Andrej Babiš' ANO party, Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party and Austria's FPÖ have announced the formation of a joint alliance in the European Parliament called “Patriots of Europe”. How much do they have in common and how much influence can they hope to wield? Those are some of the questions I put to political analyst Jiří Pehe.
“I think that they may get enough other supporters to be able to form a faction in the European Parliament, because what they need is deputies from seven countries and a minimum of 25 MEPs of which they already have 23. How strong this faction will be will depend on whether the National Rally of Marine Le Pen will decide to join them, because they would bring in a lot of deputies.
“At the same time, even if all of these parties get together and this faction has more than 50 deputies –which would be quite an achievement- it would still be just a marginal grouping in the European Parliament. Consider that the coalition of mainstream parties – the Socialists, Liberals and the People’s Party - has over 400 seats in the European Parliament, which has 720 seats altogether. That gives us a clear picture of how strong this new faction would be.”
Given the formation of this grouping and the outcome of the French elections, what does this tell us about the mood in Europe? Is this a trend that may gain strength?
“Well, obviously, extreme right parties or parties that we could call “national populists” are gaining strength, but at the same time we can see that if they win or if they become really strong they have to leave behind quite a lot of their extreme-right attitudes. We saw that with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Italy who has become more mainstream since entering the government and the same is true of Marine Le Pen who has been –certainly in the last few months – coming closer to the mainstream views. So we will have to see, if Le Pen’s party forms a government in France, what their actual policies will be.”
Looking again at the ANO party, Orbán's Fidesz party and Austria's FPÖ – how much do they actually have in common?
“It seems that above all it is their Central European identity. It is no coincidence that this initiative started in Central Europe and that the so-called “patriotic” parties in Central Europe want to cooperate, not only because they share more general common views, but because they share views that somehow relate to Central Europe. At the same time, it is a very heterogeneous grouping already now, because there are some issues that divide them. For example the expulsion of Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia after WWII. It will be interesting to watch how they can deal with this, because we know that both Orban and the Free Democrats in Austria are critical of the expulsions and of the Benes decrees. Andrej Babiš is on thin ice here and it will be interesting to see how he is going to work around it.”
How may Babiš’ alliance with Orban and the Austrian Freedom Party influence support for him on the home scene in view of the fact that general elections are scheduled for 2025?
“I think that the fact that Mr. Babiš has joined this alliance is in many ways useful for Czech voters, because they now know what kinds of attitudes and stances he is going to defend and what he would do if he were to become the next prime minister. We can see how Viktor Orban is running Hungary and Babiš seems to be inspired by Orban, so in a way it is useful that Andrej Babiš decided not to pretend any longer that ANO is a liberal party that belongs with the European liberals. He has decided to join this new alliance, which defines itself by a very strong resistance to migration, to the Green Deal and is actually very critical of the European Union. So Czech voters will have a clearer picture when they go to vote.”
If we look at Europe as a whole, do you see the strengthening of the far-right influence in many European countries as a threat to the Continent?
“We can see the strengthening of far-right parties in some countries. In other countries, it is not so prominent, or else, as we could see in some countries, it subsided. An example of this is Sweden where the Social Democrats won in the European elections and we know there was a strong nationalist party in Sweden just a few years ago.
“Support for far-right parties is also quite regional. For example the German nationalist party AfD is very strong in east Germany, but it is not so strong in west Germany and if we look at the national average of Germany as a whole it is between 15 and 20 percent. So the question is how a lot of these parties can actually create majorities and it seems that so far the only country in Europe that has managed to do so is Italy and they may also succeed in France. On the other hand, the system in France is such that it will be very difficult for them to go ahead at full speed with any anti-European or national agenda because the main player in the French political system is the president.”
Could we see Slovakia joining the Patriots for Europe alliance at any point in the future?
“Slovakia is an interesting case, because both parties that now cooperate in the Slovak government –both formerly Social Democratic parties, SMER and HLAS – are, it seems, looking for a new political home now because SMER is being censored by the European Socialists. So it is possible that they will, in the end, join this new grouping and that the main common point will be defense of Central European attitudes and issues and politics. But we have to wait and see because for SMER and HLAS it may be to some extent risky to join this alliance, because they still claim to be Socialists and by joining this new alliance they would compromise their identity and that may be detrimental to what they want to do in Slovakia.”
