Leaders of far-right parties in the European Parliament's third-largest bloc, Patriots for Europe, welcomed Donald Trump's return to power today at a rally in Madrid held under the slogan "Make Europe Great Again."
The event was attended by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, as well as the leaders of the French National Rally (RN) and the Dutch PVV party, Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders.
"Tornado Trump changed the world in just a few weeks... Yesterday we were heretics, today we are mainstream," Orban told around 2.000 supporters, most of whom waved Spanish flags.
All speakers strongly criticized immigration and most called for a new "Reconquista," a reference to the medieval Christian reconquest of parts of the Iberian Peninsula under Muslim control.
Earlier, former Estonian Finance Minister Martin Helme started the rally after a video message from Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado.
His speech criticizing "leftists" was interrupted by a topless activist from the feminist group Femen, shouting "not a step back against fascism" in Spanish, before being ejected, Hina reports.
Other topics included frequent right-wing targets such as "wokeism", a term used by some pejoratively to describe left-wing political views on race, gender and sexuality, then the NGO for rescuing migrants, and Ursula von der Leyen of the European Commission and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, whose names were met with loud jeers.
Brothers of Italy, AfD and Law and Justice rejected Patriots
The Patriots were founded after the European elections in May 2024 and consist of 86 MEPs from 14 countries, representing a total of 19 million votes. Madrid was chosen as the venue for their first official summit so that Patriots president Santiago Abascal, who leads the Spanish Vox party, could host it.
Spain's ruling Socialist Party said in a statement that it rejected what it described as a "gathering of ultras", adding: "They will not succeed in making their black-and-white view of the world prevail in this country".
Vox has been steadily rising in several polls in recent months. According to the Center for Sociological Studies (CIS), it enjoys the greatest support among young men, members of the military and police.
Despite Patriot's stated goal of uniting European nationalist conservatives, some of the most influential parties in the EU from that camp - such as Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni's Brothers of Italy, Alternative for Germany and Poland's Law and Justice - have refused to join.
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