The Patriots for Europe (PfE) Eurogroup convened in Spain on Feb. 8 under the slogan MEGA (Make Europe Great Again), popularized by Elon Musk, as the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement continues to reverberate across the Atlantic and inspire European conservatives who seek to replicate it on their home soil.
Formed in July 2024 within the European Parliament, PfE unites 86 European Members of Parliament (MEPs), making it the third-largest political force in Strasbourg.
The group centers on the party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and France’s Rassemblement National (RN), led by Marine Le Pen.
With these two nationalist heavyweights leading the charge, the Madrid event, held in an auditorium near the airport, became a powerful showcase of the growing conservative momentum in Europe, fueled by President Donald Trump’s landmark election victory on Nov. 5, 2024.
The Madrid rally came just 10 days after the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, a competing conservative faction in the European Parliament, hosted its own MEGA conference within the EU Parliament.
The PfE set the tone of the gathering with a strong statement issued the day before: “The era of Brussels elites is over.”
They asserted that “the Brussels elite has learned nothing from its mistakes” and remains committed to transforming the EU into a “mega-state focused on social engineering, with disastrous consequences for Europeans.”
Though unable to attend, Argentinian President Javier Milei, a libertarian, sent a brief but pointed message of support: “Long live freedom!”
The sentiment encapsulated the overarching message of the event: a call for resistance against what these leaders denounce as oppressive globalist forces.
Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s Vox party and host of the event, echoed this defiance.
“As we grow, they will attack us more than ever before,” he said.
Balázs Orbán, political director to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, reinforced this message, emphasizing the Patriots for Europe’s mission to counter what he called the unchecked liberal-globalist agenda in Brussels.
“Although the Patriots group was founded just eight months ago, its main objective is to challenge and counterbalance the liberal-globalist Brussels elites while offering a real alternative. We are the opposition to the forces of Brussels,” he told The Epoch Times.
He also directly linked the European movement to Trump’s reelection.
“After Trump’s victory in the United States, we will not allow the Soros–Biden network to relocate and rebuild their headquarters in Brussels,” he said.
Prime Minister Orbán, speaking in Hungarian, described Trump’s political comeback as “the Trump tornado,” asserting that nationalist forces are now the mainstream.
“Yesterday, we were the heretics. Today, we are the mainstream. People thought we represented the past; today, everyone sees that we are the future,” he said.
Viktor Orbán also used the occasion to present Hungary as a model for successful conservative governance, boasting of 15 years spent building “a free, conservative, and Christian Hungary.”
He highlighted his government’s strict immigration policies, low corporate taxes, and constitutional protections for Christian values as key pillars of this success.
As a result, he said, Hungary has become a target of the “globalist elite.”
“The Brussels bureaucrats, the U.S. Democrats, and the Soros international network are after us,” he warned.
The Hungarian prime minister also pointed to Europe’s ongoing migration crisis, arguing that “Brussels has opened the borders to an invasion of immigrants.”
Addressing the conference in French, Marine Le Pen sharply criticized the European Union’s economic and immigration policies, warning against “degrowth policies” and an “immigrationist project” that she claimed was leading to societal collapse.
“History does not grant favors to the weak,” the leader of the National Rally reminded the audience, stressing that Europe’s strength lies in its nations, not in a “cold and castrating technocratic structure.”
Le Pen framed the gathering within the broader context of global political shifts.
Following Trump’s election, “we are witnessing a worldwide shift,” she said.
However, she then cautioned, “Trump’s victory should not be seen as a call for alignment but as an invitation to embrace this movement of renewal that is rising.”
Despite some shared ideological ground, Le Pen stands apart from many of her conservative counterparts in her approach to Trump.
While she openly endorsed him in 2016 and 2020, she chose to withhold public support for his 2024 campaign as she sought to broaden her appeal to voters.
However, Guillaume Bigot, a National Rally deputy in the French National Assembly, told The Epoch Times he believes the perceived distance between Trump and Le Pen has been “overblown” by the media.
The National Rally welcomed Trump’s reelection, viewing it as “a clear rejection of globalist policies imposed by a ruling elite,” he said.
Nonetheless, Bigot said that Le Pen was right not to mimic Trump’s style and policies.
“There is an American model, but there is also a French model: the Gaullist model,” he said, referring to General Charles de Gaulle’s economic and geopolitical strategy.
He saw Le Pen’s approach as a strategy tailored to France’s political landscape and electoral realities.
“In France, provocative soundbites may create media buzz, but they don’t necessarily translate into electoral success—quite the opposite,” he said. “To win the presidency, a unifying message is essential.”
Bigot also underscored France’s independent geopolitical role.
“France is the only European nation with nuclear weapons and has the largest army on the continent,” he said.
“We also hold a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council and command the world’s second-largest maritime territory after the United States. Under Trump, the United States will prioritize its strategic interests.
“While our global influence has diminished under the current ruling class, our mission is to defend our own interests as well.”
Nevertheless, he acknowledged the importance of cooperation in confronting globalist forces.
“Fighting those who believe in globalism, like Soros, requires coordinated efforts,” he said.
In a fiery speech, Spain’s Vox leader, Santiago Abascal, rejected accusations that the European nationalist movement is blindly following Trump’s lead.
“We do not look for a savior in a foreign nation,” he told a cheering crowd. “We searched, and we have found a comrade-in-arms in the battle for good, for truth, and for beauty, in the battle for common sense, and in the battle for freedom.
“Others are lackeys of Brussels. Others were Joe Biden’s lapdogs. But not us.”
Abascal also denounced what he described as systematic censorship of nationalist voices in Europe.
“The only censorship in Europe today is the censorship against nationalist voices,” he said, comparing it to oppression “only imaginable in totalitarian regimes.”
He accused Brussels of enforcing “socialist laws and supranational directives contaminated by climate fanaticism and globalism” to silence dissent.
Praising Trump’s return to the White House, Abascal said it would dismantle what he called entrenched globalist influence networks in Western institutions.
“Trump’s victory will put an end to the millions in funding for lobbies that corrupt children in schools, finance the media that demonize us, and bankroll extremist activist organizations,” he said.
Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini took the stage to call for a radical restructuring of the European Union.
“We need a democratic revolution,” he said, outlining his vision of a “pact between free nations, a community of states that decide together on a few important things while respecting their own sovereignty.”
“Trump has demonstrated that this revolution of common sense is possible.”
Dutch leader Geert Wilders, whose Party for Freedom emerged victorious in the November 2024 parliamentary elections, echoed this sentiment, predicting that “the old regimes are going to fall.”
Condemning multiculturalism and mass immigration as “total failures,” he praised the Reconquista—the Christian kingdoms’ recapture of the Iberian Peninsula from Muslim rule in the Middle Ages—and paid tribute to the “valiant Spanish knights” who “were the first to push back Islam and restore their country’s rich Christian heritage.”
“President Trump’s victory brought a political earthquake to the world,” Wilders said, calling Trump “a brother in arms.”
Despite their differences, these European leaders converge on key ideological themes that have emerged in their speeches: opposition to “mass” immigration, rejection of the European Green Deal, defense of “national sovereignty,” and criticism of “wokism” and “globalism.”
In Hungary, the government viewed Trump’s return to the White House as a turning point.
“Donald Trump’s presidency brings a new reality and fresh momentum to Europe, and we are optimistic about the opportunities this presents,” Balázs Orbán told The Epoch Times.
He emphasized Hungary’s intention to rekindle its economic, political, and cultural ties with the United States—relationships that he said deteriorated under the Biden administration.
For France’s National Rally, which still has two years before the next presidential election, the MEGA event served primarily as a symbol of political renewal.
“Beyond its connection to MAGA, this event aims to reflect the global political transformation underway and reignite hope among those who have lost faith in the possibility of change,” Bigot said.
