Europe’s Trumpists warm up for EU elections with series of rallies

Leading Eurosceptics are ready to shake up June’s EU election campaign with three rallies, at which they will vow to protect national sovereignty against Brussels’ bureaucracy and “wokeism”.

Over the next two weeks, conservative, far-right, and Eurosceptic leaders will tour Europe, holding rallies in Brussels, Budapest, and Bucharest, which are set to promote former US president Donald Trump-like talking points.

The series of controversial events will start with the National Conservatism Conference 2024 on Tuesday and Wednesday (16-17 April) in Brussels, despite pressure from activists and politicians, including anti-fascist organisations and the mayor of Brussels, to shut it down. 

The’ NatCon24′ is set to take place at Claridge in Brussels, having been rejected at the last minute from their first venue and then reportedly evicted by police from the second. 

Organised by the Washington-based Edmund Burke Foundation, the conference’s topic, ‘Preserving the Nation-State in Europe’, will be the platform for Europe’s eurosceptic leaders to lay down their vision.

Former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki (PiS) and France’s Presidential candidate Eric Zemmour (Reconquête!) are among headline participants, while controversial Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán (Fidesz), a close ally of Trump and often leading the charge against Brussels, will be the event’s highlight.

“Brussels has abandoned the people of Europe. Never before has the distance between Brussels politics and the interests and will of ordinary Europeans been this large. This is why change is needed in Brussels. But this change will not happen by itself: it must be forced into existence,” Orbán said during his annual address in February, stressing how the elections in the US and EU are part of the same process.

“Let’s make Europe great again,” he added, claiming that Trump’s return to the White House would bring peace to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Zemmour has always admired Trump, who he sees as an ally against “Islamisation”, “European bureaucracy”, and “woke ideology”, which he says aims to “annihilate our culture, identity and history”,  three key issues for Zemmour, which he is expected to raise in his speech on Tuesday according to his party sources.

Both men are ultra-liberals with very conservative stances on social issues, including individual rights, Islam and migration.

“We share something in common: Trump wants the US to remain the US, and I want France to remain France,” Zemmour said in February 2022.

NatCon will also welcome Nigel Farage, a former MEP and UKIP and Reform UK ex-leader who strongly advocated and campaigned for Brexit.

‘No woke zone’: Welcome to Europe’s CPAC

After Brussels’ NatCon, Budapest will host on 25-26 April host the European version of the American CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference), bringing together US and foreign conservative activists and politicians.

The event in Budapest, hosted by Orbán, will gather representatives from the US Republican party with far-right leaders such as Dutch PVV’s Geert Wilders (ID), Spain’s Santiago Abascal of Vox (ECR), and the President of Belgium´s Vlaams Belang Tom van Grieken (ID), all of whom are labelled as “wokebusters” on the conference´s website.

Several media outlets, including The Guardian, have been refused accreditation to the event, arguing that it is a “no woke zone”.

The gathering’s motto is ´Let’s drain down the swamp,’ a phrase commonly used by Trump about ousting his political opponents in Washington and, in the case of Europe, the pro-EU forces in Brussels.

Romania’s far-right chips in, too

The rising Romanian far-right party AUR has organised their own ‘Make Europe Great Again’ conference in Bucharest on 27-28 April, which will see representatives from Zemmour’s party Reconquete (ECR), Poland’s PiS (ECR), Belgium’s Vlaams Belang (ID), and the Danish People’s Party (ID) take part.

Robert Malone, an American scientist who became known in the US in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic for spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories on the use of masks and the mRNA vaccines, will be one of the speakers.

The conference will discuss topics such as ‘Nations of Europe – between Eastern imperialism and Western federalism’ and ‘United we stand, divided we fall – prospects for overturning the establishment in EU Institutions.’

[Edited by Aurélie Pugnet/Alice Taylor]

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