Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his far-right Fidesz party are forming a new political alliance with Austria’s Freedom and Justice Party (FPÖ) and the Czech Action Movement of Dissatisfied Citizens (ANO), seeking to form a new group in the European Parliament .

The aim is for the group – called Patriots of Europe – to become “the biggest right-wing group in European politics”, Orban said at a press conference in Vienna on Sunday, alongside ANO leader and former Czech prime minister Andrej Babis and FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl.

The announcement marks a “new era of European politics,” Kickl said, predicting that other parties will join the “patriotic” alliance.
“We will prefer national sovereignty to federalism, freedom to mandates and peace to war,” Babis wrote in a social media post.

All three parties came first in their countries in European elections earlier this month, winning a significant number of seats in the European Parliament as support for the right grew across the continent.

The new group is expected to issue a “Patriotic Manifesto”, focusing on tackling immigration in Europe and its opposition to the European Green Deal, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s flagship package of environmental policies.

While the three parties have more than the 23 members needed to form a new caucus in the EU parliament, they still need elected MEPs from at least four other countries to qualify for the European Parliament.