Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on June 30 announced alongside allies from Austria and the Czech Republic the imminent launch of a new political alliance that he vowed would "quickly" dominate the European political right.
Speaking at a press conference in Vienna flanked by "Patriots For Europe" signs, the national populist and strident Brussels critic added that "This will happen within days, and after that the sky is the limit."
Orban's right-wing Fidesz party has dominated Hungarian politics with a supermajority since 2010, but it has appeared isolated since quitting the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) group in the European Parliament under a threat of expulsion in 2021.
Despite an apparent setback for Orban's own Fidesz party in early June's European elections amid a challenge from party defector Peter Magyar's new movement at home, many right-wing parties in the European Union rode a surge of popularity to boost their gains in the European Parliament.
SEE ALSO: Reporter's Notebook: On The Campaign Trail With Peter Magyar, The New Star Of Hungary's OppositionOrban was flanked at the announcement in Vienna by Austrian Freedom Party (FPO) President Herbert Kickl and the billionaire former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, who heads the ANO party.
"Today we are creating a political formation that I believe will multiply and very quickly become the largest faction of the European right," Orban said in a video of the event shared on Facebook and other social media.
But the Patriots For Europe project must first win further support, since those three allies so far fall short of the 23 representatives from at least seven member states required to form an official grouping in the European Parliament.
Budapest's influence will be amplified this week and for the remainder of 2024 as Hungary holds the six-month rotating EU Presidency.
It has announced that its goals include giving more space to more critical perspectives of the EU's mission and work.
Orban has hammered Brussels as his government imposed controversial laws on LGBT speech and clashed with the bloc over perceived backsliding on democratic and media freedoms.
He has also cozied up to Moscow diplomatically and economically while resisting EU and other sanctions imposed on Russia to punish its unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 and refusing to join NATO and other Western efforts to help arm Kyiv.
"I think everybody is more or less aware that we are a very characteristically right-wing government," longtime Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told a recent gathering. "We don't really like leaving doubts in this regard or any other."
Szijjarto added, "We serve as the evidence that, no, liberal mainstream is not the only way to go forward."
There is a "conservative, patriotic, right-wing, Christian Democratic way as well," that Fidesz represents, he said.
Hungary has been embroiled in rule-of-law and LGBT- and migrant-rights disputes with Brussels that have left tens of billions of euros in EU funds withheld despite an awkward compromise in January that released billions more in funds despite misgivings about judicial independence there.