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Wednesday, 12 February 2025, 14:03
After attending Donald Trump's inauguration last month, Santiago Abascal, leader of Spanish hard-right party Vox, hosted the second summit of the European group, Patriots.eu, at the Madrid Marriott Auditorium Hotel on Saturday.
In attendance were over 2,000 guests including Hungarian president Viktor Orbán, National Rally (RN) leader Marine Le Pen, the Italian minister of infrastructure and transport, Matteo Salvini, and Geert Wilders of the Dutch Party for Freedom.
The group, Patriots.eu, emerged after the European elections in June 2024. It is the third largest group in the European Parliament, representing 19 million Europeans. This is just their second congress after the one held in Paris last November.
There were several notable speakers including Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado and Argentine president Javier Milei. Machado called for international support to "remove the regime" of Nicolás Maduro, adding, "We are living in a world of dizzying changes, where societies are finally understanding the importance of freedom." Javier Milei had a more concise message for the attendees: "Viva la libertad carajo" ("Long live freedom, damn it!").
Protesters congregated outside the summit and, despite the strong security measures, a topless Femen activist entered during the speech of the Estonian leader of the conservative People's Party, Martin Helme, and shouted anti-fascist messages before being evicted by security.
The conference comes at an interesting time following the election of Donald Trump. Many of the speakers expressed their support for the new American President with Orbán saying, "The Trump tornado has changed the world in just a couple of weeks and an era is over... yesterday they said we were the past, today everyone sees that we are the future." The group hopes to follow Trump's lead and to "Make Europe Great Again". The Trump-inspired slogan will be the catchphrase of their campaign against immigration, "climate fanaticism" and the power of the European Union.
Standing up to the so-called "Brussels elites", their common enemy, was the message of the day. Salvini said, "Europe is going through a deep crisis and only we, Patriots for Europe, have the courage and the vision to change things." He added, "We have the duty to build a credible alternative to this failed Europe starting in 2025, which will be the year of the turning point, the year of the reconquest, the year in which the Patriots will show that they are ready to govern and have a clear plan."
While the group appeared to seem united, with Orbán praising Abascal, as "the bravest bullfighter I have ever seen in politics", there are divisions in this right-wing coalition. A schism has formed with previously aligned parties that make up the parliamentary group of European Conservatives and Reformists, of which the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is a member. However, Abascal called for ironing out these differences and "reaching out to the rest of our allies in Europe... We have to learn to live with our differences in order to fight our common enemies," he said.
During his speech, Abascal criticised the leaders of both the main parties in Spain. He called the leader of the Partido Popular, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, "the past" and said "Sánchez, with Maduro and with Hamas, Feijóo with Von der Leyen, and us, with the future of Europe and with the future of the world."
His words were rebuked by the government with the minister of education Pilar Alegría saying at a party event in Zaragoza, "They call themselves Patriots but their patriotism is shoddy, it is a lie, it is a fake. Their patriotism is not people, it is money."
The Vox leader chose not to pay attention to his party's internal conflicts following the resignation of Juan García-Gallardo, leader until now of the party in Castilla y León. García-Gallardo published a letter on X explaining that he will resume his activity as a lawyer and said his resignation was a consequence of the "party leadership that has been occupying more and more spaces to the detriment of others". Despite this inner turmoil, Vox has been steadily improving in the polls and for the first time exceeded 14% of voting intention in a survey released by El País and Cadena Ser last week.
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