Orbán’s Red Carpet for Le Pen: EU Nationalist to Overtake Renew in the EU Parliament

At the NATO Summit in Washington from 9-11 July, leaders will work on making Ukraine’s eventual membership in the alliance “irreversible” amid concerns about Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán’s influence in the EU and global stages.

France’s Marine Le Pen fails to win parliamentary elections at home but is offered an attractive lifeline to lead Orbán’s Patriots for Europe.

Upcoming on Visegrad Insight:

• Vitaly Portnikov lays out realistic expectations for the NATO Summit this week in Washington.
• Radu Albu-Comănescu analyses how the French elections will affect EU and Central European countries.
• Alina Inayeh will break down the outcomes of the NATO Summit at the end of the week.

Le Pen’s National Rally fails at home but will lead new EU political grouping

EU/regional

• NATO Summit in Washington 9-11 July – Working on language to make Ukraine’s eventual membership in the alliance “irreversible”, says Douglas Jones, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs.
• The plan for the summit is to outline concrete steps for Ukraine to achieve membership, a sober difference from last year’s summit where expectations were high and not fulfilled.
• Concerns about Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán’s potential impact on the final declaration after he visited Kyiv last week for the first time since Russia’s invasion and tried to persuade President Zelenskyy to consider a cease-fire with Russia just before he flew to meet Putin in Moscow, angering EU and transatlantic allies.
• The summit will include foreign ministers from 35 non-NATO member partners are invited to attend the Washington summit, notably from Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will visit Warsaw on Monday 8 July before heading to the NATO summit in Washington, according to the Polish government.
• The government announced that Prime Minister Donald Tusk will welcome Zelenskyy at 12:10 CET, followed by a joint press conference.
• Zelenskyy’s visit to Western allies strikes a stark comparison to Orbán’s trip to global leaders (more on this below).

• French election results. Voters chose the United Left and Macron’s centrists over the far right. The outcome will likely be a hung parliament and public finance turbulence with negligible effect, for the time being, on foreign and European policymaking.
• Le Pen loses in France but has chances to overtake Macron’s Renew in the European Parliament after her party takes the helm of the new Orbán initiative – the Patriots for Europe grouping. (More on this below)

• The new UK Labour government aims to establish a comprehensive security pact with the EU covering defence, energy, climate, pandemics and illegal migration, according to Foreign Secretary David Lammy.
• Lammy emphasised that this initiative, part of resetting UK-EU relations post-Brexit, won’t compromise Labour’s stance on staying outside the EU’s single market and customs union.
• The pact seeks closer cooperation without needing a legally binding agreement, which could take years to finalise.
• Additionally, Lammy has accepted an invitation from EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell to attend the October EU foreign affairs council meeting, a move previously rejected by the Conservative government.

New Western aid packages in lead up to NATO Summit 

UKRAINE