What you Need to Know About the Patriots for Europe Summit

MADRID – The PfE summit held this weekend in Madrid ended with a scathing attack on the EU, which they consider “corrupt” and “anachronistic.”

Here are the main takeaways:

• Sovereignty is making a strong comeback
• The bloc’s excessive bureaucracy is a “cage” that limits national control
• Irregular migration is draining Europe’s finances
• The EU’s environmental policies are “suicidal” for industry

Participants, including Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, France’s Marine Le Pen, and The Netherlands’ Geert Wilders, sent a clear message of optimism for Donald Trump’s return.

The summit was, after all, held under the slogan ‘Make Europe Great Again’ – a clear nod to Trump’s own MAGA, Euractiv.es reported.

The sovereigntist wave Trump has generated following his second term in office will also reach Europe, Orbán commented.

The PfE is currently the third force in the European Parliament with 84 seats, only behind the EPP and the S&D. The group’s members are also gaining ground nationally.

Beyond PfE, Orbán is also confident that far-right movements in Europe will steadily grow, just like the far-right Alternative for Germany.

The party is a member of Parliament’s extreme-right ESN group and is polling second ahead of the 23 February German elections.

The ‘Brussels cage‘A key buzzword at the meeting was “reconquest.”

This concept can perfectly sum up the group’s aim to regain the sovereignty initiative in Brussels and break what they see as the hegemony – or duopoly – of the EPP and S&D, which often align on critical votes in the Parliament.

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Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania -- former Soviet states that are now European Union and NATO members -- have been working on making the change since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

“The Brussels elite has learned nothing from its mistakes and has, by no means, given up its aspiration to transform the EU into a mega-state focused on social engineering,” a press release published on Friday reads.

But the Patriots “are going to be the protagonists of a historic victory of the ideas of freedom and sovereignty. Forward patriots of Europe, without fear of anything or anyone,” stated host Santiago Abascal, Vox leader and president of the Patriots.eu party.

Leader of La Lega and Italian Minister of Transport, Matteo Salvini, blamed diminishing national powers on the EU’s excessive red tape.

“Europe is not the cage they built in Brussels,” he said, firmly rejecting the notion that it is the EU that legitimises states. For him, the opposite is true: “States legitimise the EU, or else it wouldn’t exist.”

He also praised Trump’s protectionist economic measures. “If thousands of car workers are losing their jobs these days, it is not Trump’s fault, but the economic, industrial and environmental suicide imposed by Brussels.”

Similarly, France’s Rassemblement Nationale leader Marine le Pen criticised the bloc’s green policy, stating that industrialists are starting to “rebel” against the “absurd and suicidal euphemisms of the Green Deal.

She then attacked the EU’s controversial Migration and Asylum Pact. “Migration policy is out of control and the bottomless pit of immigration is emptying our coffers and filling our prisons.”

Orbán also blamed Brussels for “opening the door” to “illegal immigrants” who are now “overrunning” Europe.

While optimism for the EU is low, all Patriots pinned their hopes on the new US president. “The Trump tornado has changed the world in just a couple of weeks and an era is over,” Orbán said.