The head of the new group will be the chairman of the French Rassemblement National (RN), Jordan Bardella. Representatives of the new group – including the Austrian MEP Harald Vilimsky (FPÖ) – announced this on Monday in Brussels.
Announced in Vienna
The new faction was announced in Vienna a week ago by FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban (Fidesz) and the Czech Andrej Babis of the populist ANO party. In addition to the RN, the Lega of Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, the Spanish ultra-conservative party Vox, the Dutch Freedom Party of Geert Wilders, the Danish People’s Party, the Portuguese Chega and the Belgian Vlaams Belang have now joined. In addition, there are individual MPs from the Czech Republic (Přísaha a Motoristé), Latvia (Latvia First) and Greece (Foni Logikis) as well as a satellite party of the Hungarian Fidesz (KDNP).
AfD is not part of the parliamentary group
The right-wing populist AfD from Germany is not part of the new parliamentary group and will not be for the time being, as a representative of the RN said at the press conference on Monday. The AfD was excluded from the right-wing ID parliamentary group before the election following its top candidate Maximilian Krah made a Nazi comment. The RN was in favor at the time, while the FPÖ (which was also part of the ID parliamentary group) was once morest it. According to Vilimsky, the AfD is currently trying to form its own new parliamentary group, which is why the question of membership in the “Patriots” is not currently an issue.