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“We’re all Russia critics now.” That seems to be the message from Europe’s populist and far-right politicians as they woo each other and eye a potential megamerger after this weekend’s elections for the European parliament.
Representatives from nationalist parties could secure a quarter of the parliament’s 720 seats, enough to form the second-largest group, after the centre-right European People’s Party. But that would be no small feat, given that for years they have been split into two different groups, and dozens of other far-right lawmakers were left outside any caucus.
The biggest dividing line has been over Russia, particularly in the wake of Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and start of the conflict in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region in 2014. This was the structural reason for the formation of two camps after the last election in 2019, says Klaus Welle, who was the parliament’s secretary-general at the time.
Of the two hard-right groups, the European Conservatives and Reformists, led by Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS), was home to the Russia hawks.
The Moscow-leaning group was Identity and Democracy, dominated by Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, that included Italy’s League and the Alternative for Germany party — all admirers of Vladimir Putin who were forced to sever financial and political ties to the Russian leader following his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
But with time, those lines have become blurred.
As long as PiS was in power in Warsaw, until late last year, it ramped up defence spending and positioned itself as one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters. Now in opposition, the Polish ultraconservatives are more open to a rapprochement with Russia doves, starting with Hungary’s ruling Fidesz, an unattached party which wants to join ECR.
Like most, if not all, nationalist politicians, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán condemned Russia’s war. But his stance is the most Kremlin-friendly of any EU leader. He opposes military aid for Kyiv and advocates for an immediate ceasefire — an effective capitulation by Ukraine. He denounces EU sanctions against Russia. He dragged his feet on financial aid to Kyiv and on admitting Sweden and Finland to Nato; he opposes Ukraine’s future EU membership and he has done little to reduce Hungary’s energy dependence on Moscow.
An unbridgeable gulf? Not any more.
“We can’t have friends of Putin in our group,” said Nicola Procaccini, the leader of the ECR parliamentary group. “But I don’t think Viktor Orbán is a friend of Putin.”
“Generally, there are no fundamental differences,” says Zdzisław Krasnodębski, a PiS MEP. “In the end, Hungary has always supported the decisions of the countries of the EU,” he added, including on sanctions.
“We cannot co-operate with a party which justifies this war or which paralyses our sanctions policy or our military aid to Ukraine. But if this is not the case, we can live with some differences of opinion of how we should proceed.”
The same applies to France’s RN, says Krasnodębski, but not Germany’s AfD, which has maintained its pro-Kremlin position.
Other parties within the ECR group, however, are far more sceptical. Its Czech, Finnish, Swedish and Belgian members are opposed to joining forces with Orbán let alone Le Pen, whose stance on Russian and Ukraine is similar to the Hungarian premier’s.
Much now hinges on Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister and ECR president. A one-time Putin admirer, Meloni’s staunch support of Kyiv since 2022 has been emblematic of her responsible, pragmatic approach to government. Is she prepared to put that reputation at risk?
“Meloni now has to make a decision,” says Welle. “Does she want to organise, let’s say, the constructive part of the space to the right of the EPP? Or does she take up the offer of Le Pen to form a huge group but lose all the credibility she has built up over the last years in government?”
Russia will continue to be a dividing line running through the nationalist right, says Nathalie Tocci, director of Italy’s Institute for International Affairs. But it could “diminish in salience” if Donald Trump returns to the White House next year. Meloni cares less about Ukraine than in finding favour in the west, Tocci says.
“If Washington ends up throwing Kyiv under the bus, she’ll be happy to tag along.”