Viktor Orbán’s defeat has deprived the European far right of its most successful model of government. Patriots for Europe remain the third strongest group in the European Parliament, but they have lost the politician who, over a long period, managed to build a political system around state power, EU funds, culture war, pro-Russian diplomacy and ties to Trump’s United States. It was only when Hungary’s EU funding was frozen that Orbánism began to run up against its limits.
The formation of Patriots for Europe in 2024 signalled a realignment of the European far right. The new group’s open ambition was to change the EU’s approach to migration, green policy and the war in Ukraine. The Czech Republic could hardly be absent. Andrej Babiš’s ANO moved to the Patriots from the liberal Renew Europe group. In doing so, Czechia’s most influential politician placed himself alongside Matteo Salvini’s League, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and Herbert Kickl’s Austrian Freedom Party.
Until now, Babiš had never cared much for any of these parties. The real reason he joined the effort to build a new powerful group lay elsewhere: Viktor Orbán.
Patriots for Orbán
In 2024, Orbán still held an exceptional, if already visibly problematic position in European politics. Since returning to power in Hungary in 2010, he had restructured the country’s institutions, subordinated a large part of the media landscape, and built an extensive economic base loyal to Fidesz. He had placed culture war issues at the centre of his state policy, and a number of politicians across Europe had tried to imitate him.
For the European far right, Orbán provided proof that an openly illiberal project could function inside the European Union both ideologically and economically. Hungary had no problem drawing European funds despite Fidesz campaigning against much of the EU’s agenda. Orbán used his place inside EU decision making as a source of leverage, even as he attacked Brussels over rule of law, migration, civil society, media freedom and minority rights.
By late 2022, however, this confrontational model was becoming untenable. Parts of Hungary’s EU funding had been suspended or made conditional under EU procedures linked to rule of law concerns, including public procurement, anti-corruption safeguards and judicial independence. Fidesz had also been outside the European People’s Party family since 2021 and was looking for a new home in the European Parliament. Patriots for Europe, formed after the 2024 European elections, provided it. Orbán became the group’s unofficial spokesman.
The Hungarian prime minister was already facing problems because of his accommodating attitude toward Russia since 24 February 2022. His foreign policy and repeated blocking of EU decisions left both him and Hungary increasingly isolated. When Hungary took over the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU on 1 July 2024, Orbán immediately set off on his own ‘peace mission’ to Kyiv, Moscow and Beijing. It was not an official EU mission. Most European governments saw it as a solo action that weakened the EU’s common position.
The king of illiberalism
Still, Orbán remained the ‘king’ of the illiberal political current. His version of conservatism had little to do with the principles and rules of that political tradition. Rather, it was a nationalism that pretended to respect those principles in order to attract voters disillusioned with capitalism, and to reap the profits. This was precisely what had long appealed to Babiš, who had no problem calling Orbán his ‘friend’.
Shortly after the creation of Patriots for Europe, representatives of its member parties gathered at a conference in Madrid, put on caps with the slogan Make Europe Great Again, and resolved to build a European version of the MAGA movement. Orbán, Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini, Geert Wilders, Santiago Abascal and other representatives of the European far right stood on the same stage. They spoke about migration, the Green Deal, national sovereignty, the fight against ‘wokism’ and the decline of Europe. Donald Trump’s victory in the United States was confirmation that the same political language could bring them into power in Europe too, turning the ideological wheel toward coordinated isolationism and nationalism.
Andrej Babiš’s relation to the European Patriots group was ambivalent from the very beginning. One basic thing is known about the Czech prime minister: he likes power and is not afraid to ingratiate himself with it, regardless who happens to embody it at any given moment. Babiš can boast of his relationship with Orbán and, a few moments later, arrange a meeting with Emmanuel Macron.
Even so, the Czech PM’s sudden departure from Renew Europe, where his party ANO had belonged for many years, came as a surprise. The Czech prime minister had placed himself among politicians who had no need to pretend ideological restraint or decency. Wilders, Salvini, Le Pen, Abascal and Kickl build on open nationalism, racist rhetoric and the most primitive forms of culture war.
In Czech politics, Babiš had long presented himself somewhat differently: as a defender of the poor, fishing for votes among the middle and lower middle classes that had drifted toward him after the collapse of social democracy. By joining the Patriots, however, he placed himself inside a rather different European political family. The family of the far right.
The edifice crumbles
A year passed and the Patriots began to convulse in chaos and spasms. The Hungarian elections changed the entire dynamic of the Patriots, shaking the group to its foundations.
Orbán had been the driving force of the coalition, the face showing the world that this type of politics could succeed and would keep succeeding. He lent the whole project a weight that the other Patriot leaders did not have. Marine Le Pen has never governed France. Geert Wilders has managed to shake up Dutch politics but has never held office and remains primarily a symbol of radicalization. Salvini passed through the Italian government, but his power was limited by coalitions and the volatility of the country’s politics. Andrej Babiš, now into his second term as Czech prime minister, has never been able to maintain continuous power over the country and remains one of the most controversial figures in Czech politics.
Orbán was different. He governed uninterruptedly for sixteen years, rebuilt the state, created a loyal media and economic base, and turned conflict with the European Union into his own political brand. Under his rule, public contracts, EU-funded projects, loyal business circles and parts of the media became closely intertwined. Economic influence and political influence were mutually reinforcing. As a businessman turned prime minister, Babiš recognised the practical advantages of such a system.
But something had begun to creak in the relationship between Orbán and Babiš. This became clear at the CPAC Hungary, the Hungarian version of the American conservative conference scheduled by Orbán for March 2026, just a few weeks before the parliamentary elections. It was not just a parade of friendly politicians. During Orbán’s years in power, Budapest had become one of the centers of western nationalism, as Le Monde put it, with state supported institutions such as the Danube Institute, the Mathias Corvinus Collegium, the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs and the Center for Fundamental Rights playing a major role. The Center for Fundamental Rights co-organises CPAC Hungary with the American Conservative Union, which owns the CPAC brand. Orbán’s Hungary had become an important meeting point for parts of the American and European right.
CPAC Hungary 2026 took place in Budapest on 21 March, attracting 667 foreign guests from 51 countries and, in total, a few thousand participants. Independent media were denied access to the event. Prominent speakers included Geert Wilders, Herbert Kickl, Alice Weidel, Irakli Kobakhidze, Mateusz Morawiecki, Tom Van Grieken, and Martin Helme. Figures from the American conservative milieu were also in attendance, including Matt Schlapp. Donald Trump supported Orbán in a video message.
To the surprise of many, Andrej Babiš did the same. ‘Friend Andrej’ excused his absence on the grounds of pressing domestic matters, leaving foreign minister Petr Macinka to attend the event. People like Orbán were born once every 500 years, Macinka said, comparing his host to Michelangelo. But despite the foreign minister’s efforts, it was clear that Czech–Hungarian relations had cooled. After Orbán lost the election, Babiš, who had previously communicated publicly with his counterpart in Hungarian, switched to formal English. Having spent years building up close ties, Orbán was suddenly, for Babiš, an electoral loser.
The question was what this would do to Patriots for Europe and who, if anyone, would replace Orbán as the main link to Russia and Trump’s United States.
Babiš the chameleon
Babiš now found himself the only sitting prime minister of an EU member state within Patriots for Europe. Logically, this would mean that he take up the reins. But nothing of the sort is happening. To rush into the role of the Patriots’ new leader would go against Babiš’s basic instinct. His entire political career rests on his ability to be present wherever something might serve his purposes, while claiming that it has nothing to do with him, or even that he is the victim of the situation. Babiš can, at one and the same time, be a partner to Orbán and Macron, a European pragmatist and a victim of Brussels, a defender of the welfare state and a friend of big business, depending on what the moment requires.
The same is true of his support for Patriots for Europe. He expresses it, but within limits. Babiš clearly does not want greater responsibility. This was fully demonstrated by the first ‘post-Orbán’ meeting of the Patriots in Milan, to which Viktor Orbán had been invited but did not attend. In the available reports, the Czech prime minister does not appear among the main speakers or quoted figures. Most of the attention was on Salvini, Bardella, Wilders, Van Grieken and others. This suggests that the Czech prime minister kept his distance from the hardest expressions of identitarian and nationalist politics represented by his colleagues.
Urgently seeking a new centre of power
For the far right, access to government still matters enormously. Ministries, European negotiations, diplomatic channels and public money give nationalist politics a reach that conferences, media platforms and think tanks alone cannot provide. Orbán was so important because, for many years, he offered all of this from inside an EU member state. Budapest was not merely a meeting place for European nationalism. It was a place where nationalist politicians, intellectuals and activists could connect with actual power.
After the Hungarian elections, this address will have to change. Fidesz remains part of the Patriots and Orbán’s network will not disappear from one day to the next. But without the prime minister’s office, he loses something that no think tank or conference can replace: direct control over an EU member state. For Patriots for Europe, an urgent question now arises. Where does their governing power reside, and everything connected to it?
The search for an answer automatically leads to Prague. For a group that has lost its most important statesman, the Czech prime minister has a new value. A crucial role in this shift is played by the most powerful woman in the Czech Republic, Tünde Bartha, the head of the Government Office. Some commentators in Czechia have nicknamed her the Cardinal Richelieu of Czech politics. Her biography, and the forceful way she has been exercising her influence in recent months, suggests such an assessment is not far from the truth.
A Slovak–Hungarian manager, Bartha helped establish the Hungarian division of Babiš’s company Agrofert in Hungary. In 2024 Viktor Orbán awarded her a high state decoration. For Babiš, she has long served as the main connection to Budapest and to the power clique around Fidesz. Today, the influential manager is constantly by Babiš’s side, travelling with him on working trips, inviting diplomats to the Government Office and occasionally negotiating on behalf of Czechia herself.
Bartha’s good relations with the Hungarian conservative faction suggest that the centre of power within the European far right may slowly be moving to Czechia. The axis of Czech Hungarian relations is still held together by loyalty and a history of contacts with the Orbán era. This remains true even though Babiš himself publicly keeps on the margins. Even after Orbán, it will be important for the Czech prime minister to maintain good relations with his former political role-model, even if only privately.
After Orbán’s fall, most European commentators were instead betting on Robert Fico’s Slovakia. One of the few European politicians who regularly travels to Moscow, the Slovak prime minister has taken on the role previously played by Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjártó, after it was revealed that Szijjártó had repeatedly shared details with his Russian counterpart about sensitive EU negotiations.
Fico, however, does not command great respect from the other politicians of the European far right. His government has long been mired in coalition problems, and the protests against him, however exhausting and ineffective, point to a strong fragmentation in the country. His governing party, SMER, is not affiliated to any group in the European Parliament, which considerably weakens his position.
A MAGA dilemma
While links to Russia are discussed almost daily in post communist countries, the role of the United States often remains in the background. Yet the relationship between the European far right and Donald Trump’s political circle is crucial. Trump’s America is attractive to the Patriots because it offers them a successful image of the politics they themselves have been trying, with varying degrees of success, to introduce into Europe for years. Support for stricter border controls, deportations, and fossil fuels, combined with attacks on universities, independent media, cultural institutions and the language of national pride: all of this strongly appeals to the parties gathered in the Patriots. Trump’s economic policy toward Europe is meanwhile downplayed.
Before the election, Orbán received open support from JD Vance and Donald Trump. The support was aimed at more than keeping one leader in power. For the Trumpist camp, Orbán’s Hungary had become a political base in Europe: a government inside the EU, surrounded by institutions, conferences, media outlets and intellectual circles that helped spread national conservative narratives and culture war themes across borders. Orbán’s defeat weakens one of the main channels through which Trumpist politics could reach not only far right parties, but also disillusioned parts of European society.
The so-called sovereignists, who gleefully kick the European Union in the shins while routinely feeding off its money and infrastructure, now find themselves in a paradoxical position. The answer to the politics of both the United States and Moscow is not the strengthening of nation states, but the greatest possible European integration. Trump also intends to demand a strict overview of how much individual EU member states contribute from their budgets to defence. Czechia, at least, has plenty to answer for here. But unlike his fellow Patriots, Babiš has no one to hide behind.
The earthquake happens, but only a little
Orbán’s defeat has sent a tremor through the European far right. The MEPs of the Patriots for Europe are aware of it. One of them referred to ‘the end of an era’. The question is what will happen to identitarian politics more broadly.
National-conservative, xenophobic politics have certainly not disappeared. On the contrary. Since the so-called refugee crisis, its representatives have managed to shift the boundary of what is considered normal and acceptable political speech. Together with an army of influencers that grew up around the Generation Identity, they have smuggled into politics and public discourse a whole range of positions that would previously have been strongly condemned.
Far right politics itself used to provoke general rejection and outrage: recall, for example, the EU’s response after Austria’s conservative ÖVP chancellor Wolfang Schüssel formed a coalition with Jörg Haider’s far-right FPÖ in 2000. But with the rise of its new, less vulgar and more polished political elite, all former standards have been blurred. Today’s post-fascists do not wear heavy combat boots or SS tattoos. Many have studied at prestigious universities and belonged to youth organizations attached to the parliamentary parties represented in Patriots for Europe.
Viktor Orbán was one of its most important driving forces of this normalization, but not the only one. Marine Le Pen and National Rally played a similar role through the strategy of dédiabolisation: the attempt to strip the party of its extremist image and make far right politics appear acceptable to mainstream voters. Orbán showed how this politics could govern from inside an EU member state. Le Pen showed how it could be softened rhetorically without abandoning its nationalist core. Even if Orbán’s defeat matters greatly in terms of power and symbolism, a single election will not shake this robust and sophisticated system. The Patriots and their politics will not disappear, and neither will the political infrastructure built around them.
Their youth organizations mostly have a highly problematic past, often connected with controversies around the legitimization not only of far-right narratives, but often of openly neo-Nazi ones. The centre of gravity of these organizations lies somewhat outside the traditional understanding of politics as we know it from party systems. Instead, they depend on a new wave of influencers who attract the attention of young people. The other side, whether we are talking about Europe’s faltering left or liberals, simply does not have anything like this. And soon it may pay the price.
Nationalism is not dead
What has been built over the past decade reaches far beyond Hungary. In large parts of society, especially among people hit hard by successive crises, the impression has taken hold that people’s interests are now defended mainly by the far right. Orbán’s government clearly showed whom such regimes actually serve: their own power class, connected business and political families that have turned the state into a source of money, contracts and loyalty.
This politics draws its strength from among people disillusioned with global capitalism, who keep paying for economic, cultural and social inequalities. It is among them that the far right appears to be the only force that takes their anger seriously. In reality, it merely redirects it – at migrants, LGBTQIA+ people, women, poor people, NGOs, the independent media or anyone else who happens to fit the role of enemy.
The hole left behind by Orbán at the centre of national conservative power is small compared to the gulf of inequality that has been opening for decades between classes in European countries. If further social groups and generations grow up under such conditions, and if democratic politics fails to find an answer, the most lasting legacy of the Orbán era will be the persistent drift of the disadvantaged towards the far right – despite the fact that this politics actively pits people against each who stand very close on the economic ladder.
Competing with the global far right means offering people an alternative that is emancipatory, not exclusionary. Only then can it truly and honestly be said that Orbánism is behind us.