Representatives of several conservative and right-wing populist parties met in Warsaw this weekend at the invitation of Poland's governing Law and Justice party (PiS).
At the "Warsaw Summit," they plan to discuss strategies for a stronger emphasis on nation states in the European Union, the nationalist-conservative PiS announced on its website.
At the end of the meeting, the president of the Spanish Vox party, Santiago Abascal, announced on Twitter that the leaders of the Polish and Hungarian parties, Jaroslaw Kaczynski and Prime Minister Viktor Orban, accepted his invitation to celebrate the next "summit of patriots" in Spain.
Vuelvo a España tras la exitosa cumbre en Varsovia junto a los primeros ministros de Polonia y Hungría y otros dirigentes patriotas y conservadores europeos.
— Santiago Abascal 🇪🇸 (@Santi_ABASCAL) December 4, 2021
Los líderes reunidos han aceptado mi invitación para celebrar la próxima cumbre en España en enero. pic.twitter.com/qLCe8QhBcr
The gathering in Warsaw is following on from a similar meeting in July as part of efforts towards forming a common bloc within European politics.
In a closing statement, the conference attendees condemned attempts by EU institutions to overrule national governments, in apparent reference to rule-of-law proceedings against Poland and Hungary, among other things.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had already arrived on Friday for talks with his Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki.
In addition to PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski and Prime Minister Morawiecki as hosts and Hungary's Orban, Marine Le Pen as head of the French National Rally also personally attended the meeting, and Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain's Vox party.
‼️ Orbán y Kaczyński aceptan en Varsovia la invitación de @Santi_ABASCAL para celebrar la próxima cumbre de patriotas europeos en España.
— VOX 🇪🇸 (@vox_es) December 4, 2021
Las fuerzas patrióticas y conservadoras deben alcanzar un frente común en favor de las soberanías nacionales 💪
➡️ https://t.co/fPZB3OBWJ6 pic.twitter.com/NgB3F1Vft7
According to the Polish news agency PAP, around "a dozen" other parties sent emissaries, some of them prominent.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD) was absent, as was the Italian Lega leader Matteo Salvini.
'Two goals'
In his opening speech, Kaczynski defined two goals: "The first relates to strengthening cooperation, coordination and building unity between the two right-wing factions in the European Parliament. The second goal is to change the character of the European Union."
The EU's right-wing populist and nationalist parties are currently split between two groups in the European Parliament, with the Hungarian governing party of Orban, Fidesz, belonging to neither.
Kaczynski accused EU institutions of trying to uproot European peoples from their traditions in a bid to transform them into an artificial European nation.
But such a common nation "has never existed, does not exist and cannot exist," the PiS leader said in his address.
No concrete plan for uniting the participating parties in a common EU parliamentary group was announced.
