Ventura defends Csega’s membership in the new European group that includes Orban’s party

President Csegi said on Sunday that he “welcomes” the integration of his party into the new European Parliament group formed by nationalist parties led by the Hungarian Prime Minister.

At a press conference in Lisbon, André Ventura supported this accession in order to unite the European right and announced that he would facilitate a meeting of the National Directorate of CEGA on Tuesday so that an expanded National Council of the party could be convened to discuss integration into Viktor Orbán’s group.

Andre Ventura expressed confidence that in the next few hours or days, new populist right-wing parties will join this new group in the European Parliament, expressing confidence in the victory of the far right in this Sunday’s French legislative elections.

This Sunday in Vienna, the leaders of the three major populist and nationalist parties from Hungary, Austria and the Czech Republic, led by the ultra-conservative Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, announced the creation of a new group in the European Parliament.

“The goal is for this group to soon become the strongest right-wing group in the European Parliament,” said the Hungarian leader, whose country will take over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union on Monday.

The new faction, which still needs the support of at least four other parties, will be called Patriots of Europe, and the three founding groups are Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party, Austria’s liberal FPÖ party in opposition, and the Czech Republic’s ruling opposition Alliance of Dissatisfied Citizens (ANO).

These three parties, which focus their policies on controlling immigration in Europe, emerged as winners of the recent European elections in their countries.

In addition to restrictive immigration policies, all three advocate the repeal of the future European ban on cars with internal combustion engines, as well as a review of the so-called “Green New Deal” for the environmental transformation of the European economy.

Along with Orbán, the so-called “patriotic manifesto” was signed by the leader of the FPÚ, Herbert Kickl, and the leader of the ANO and former Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, magnate Andrej Babiš.

All three stressed that the goal is for their announcement to act as a rocket to motivate other European teams to join their cause.

The three parties that met on Sunday have 24 MEPs, one more than the minimum of 23 to form a group in the European Parliament, although they still need to bring together at least four other parties to formalise the parliamentary alliance.

Kickl, who leads Austria’s polls with 27% of the vote ahead of the general election on September 29, stressed that from now on “all political forces willing to participate in these positive reforms will be welcome.”

“From what I’ve heard over the last few days, there will be more support at the moment than some probably imagine,” the leader of the Austrian far right said, without elaborating.