Orbán's far-right alliance reaches European Parliament group status

A new far-right alliance in the European Parliament, launched just a week ago by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has enough parties to achieve group status.

The Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV), Belgium's Vlaams Belang and the Danish People's Party announced their intention to join the alliance over the weekend.

Their declaration means seven countries are now represented in the alliance called Patriots for Europe, an important condition to form a parliamentary group in the EU legislature.

As well as representing a quarter of EU countries, a political group must have 23 EU legislators, according to European Parliament rules. It is not permitted to belong to more than one group.

Orbán's Fidesz party, Austria's far-right Freedom Party and the Czech ANO party were the first members the Patriots for Europe alliance when it was first announced.

The group's manifesto has the usual far-right focus on retaining national sovereignty vis-à-vis the European Union, fighting illegal migration and pushing back EU measures to reduce climate change.

Many of the parties in the Patriots for Europe were previously with the far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) group, dominated by Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN) party from France.

Le Pen did not want to comment on possible membership of the new right-wing alliance until Monday, the day after the second round of the French parliamentary elections.

The addition of the RN would the allow the Patriots for Europe group to become the third-strongest parliamentary group behind the centre-right European People's Party (EPP) and the centre-left Social Democrats (SD), overtaking the other right-wing group, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR).

So far, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which was kicked out of the ID group during the recent European Parliament elections, has declined to join the Patriots for Europe.

The shifting right-wing alliances add an element of uncertainty before the EU legislature's first sitting in July to elect Ursula von der Leyen for a second term as president of the European Commission.

Von der Leyen is currently trying to build a coalition of votes to secure a majority and has courted ECR support.