The (Ephemeral) Rainbow Alliance

From migration to LGBTQ+ rights, Viktor Orbán is definitely not a supporter of diversity. But when it came to reorganising the European Right, the Hungarian Prime Minister did not shy away from joining a rainbow coalition. Together with his European partners, he is willing to form an alliance that could shape the future of European politics, but experts are worried that openly pro-Russian and pro-Chinese members could increase authoritarian influence in the EU.

When the Hungarian government party left the European People’s Party (EPP) this past March, no one would have thought that by the end of the summer, its MEPs would still sit in the European Parliament as independents. Given that the EPP is the largest party in the EP, leaving the alliance meant Fidesz MEPs lost much of their former power. This was a particularly big blow to some who were widely seen as professionals in their own field — even if on the other side of the political spectrum.

As expertise does not always count when decisions are made on a political level, the task to find new allies fell to none other than Viktor Orbán who set out his agenda in a programme ironically named ‘samizdat’, named after underground makeshift publications to evade censorship in the former communist bloc.

‘Now — without the EPP — we must build a European democratic right that offers a home to European citizens who do not want migrants, who do not want multiculturalism, who have not descended into LGBTQ lunacy, who defend Europe’s Christian traditions, who respect the sovereignty of nations, and who see their nations not as part of their past, but as part of their future,’ he wrote.