When Alice Weidel heard about Viktor Orbán’s initiative to create “Patriots for Europe” to unite his like-minded people in the European Parliament, she described the initiative as very interesting. Obviously, she would also like her own party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), to belong to the third strongest political group in the European Parliament. The reason she chose to be cautious had to do with the behavior of the opposite side towards her party, and not with her own desire.

The AfD had already been excluded from the “Identity and Democracy” (ID) group, which was essentially the ancestor of the “Patriots”, initiated by Marine Le Pen, who wanted to shake off the pro-Nazi rant before the election.

Closed doors

The doors of the “Patriots” were finally closed even after the elections for the German far-right party, which had no luck being accepted by the other extreme “Conservatives and Reformists”, where the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, of “Italian Brothers”. Even Alternative’s second co-chairman Tino Krupala’s attempt to flatter Viktor Orbán by uploading a selfie with him from Germany’s EURO stadiums could not sway objections to a party facing specific accusations in German courts of pro-Nazi views.

He collected even if he was a farmer

The 14 AfD MEPs therefore risked being left alone in Brussels, which means less influence and above all less means. In money, partners, contacts, committee positions. So it was decided to create a new group. But the only ones who were still “homeless” were some small and rather completely marginal parties, mainly from Eastern Europe. That is, not the “cream of the crop” of the Far Right from Hungary, France, Spain or Poland, but smaller political movements. From these countries plus Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, they finally managed to gather another 14 MEPs and raise the total to 28. According to some journalists in Brussels, the Greek “Niki” is also expected to join the group.

This new group will have the not so original title “Europe of Sovereign Nations”. Its president will be the newly elected German MEP René Aust.

In the AfD they are now trying to present the problem of their isolation as an advantage, claiming that they will have more freedom of movement. At the same time, they claim that the official German government had a hand, pressuring the Hungarian Prime Minister not to accept them in his group.

What they prefer not to mention is that many of their partner parties in Eastern Europe have the reputation of being real “hooligans” of the Far Right, that is, they are even accused of criminal acts.

Satisfied the extreme Kra

Maximilian Kra, the MEP who had caused the party’s expulsion from the Identity Party when he told an Italian newspaper that not all those in the SS were bad, and who consequently retired as an MEP, now said he was extremely satisfied with this clear “right” position of the party in the European political arc, with the aim of being able to be an important part in building a new, more national Europe.

The bottom line is, however, that the Alternative for Germany is losing important allies that it had in the previous five years in the European Parliament. It will also be of interest how the German public opinion will evaluate the impressive isolation of the party across Europe, which remains consistently second in the opinion polls in Germany, even from its ideologically related parties. The elections in three East German states next September may give the first signs of this.