Afterwards, the only disagreement is whether you really agree. This is how the result of a meeting of right-wing and ultra-conservative politicians over the weekend in Madrid can be summarized. The prime ministers of Hungary and Poland were the most prominent guests at the “summit in defense of Europe,” which the right-wing populist party Vox had invited to in a posh hotel on the Plaza de España in the Spanish capital. However, their performances showed that the participants were by no means unanimous about how exactly Europe should be defended. And above all: against whom.
Actually, the meeting should have been a big EU bashing. After all, from the point of view of Vox MEP Jorge Buxadé, who surprisingly presented the results of the event instead of party leader Santiago Abascal, Brussels is a “bureaucratic machine that has become independent of the nations and is pursuing ideological goals”. So far consensus among those who had traveled there.
But the world situation ensured that another, possibly more urgent, threat to Europe was also discussed in Madrid. At the end of the meeting there was a statement with a surprisingly clear message to Russia, even if the Russian President Vladimir Putin was not named. The paper condemns “Russia’s military actions on Europe’s eastern border, which have brought us to the brink of war” and speaks of “the threat of external aggression”.
Poland’s prime minister criticizes Berlin
The statement largely corresponds to the Polish position. Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki also used his visit to Spain to talk to the conservative daily El Mundo to give an interview in which he warned against Putin’s imperial “dreams” and renewed his criticism of the German position in the conflict over Ukraine. Morawiecki once again warned the German government that the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline would increase dependence on Russia. He himself wants to influence Viktor Orbán here in Madrid to settle his differences with Ukraine, Morawiecki said.
Poland’s prime minister said this a few hours before the “summit”, which in turn took place a few days before Orbán’s planned visit to Putin. After the meeting in Madrid, however, it is unlikely that the Hungarian prime minister will present himself as the messenger of the summit declaration. Orbán was welcomed to Madrid in front of the cameras by Vox boss Santiago Abascal, who smiled triumphantly at the high-ranking visitor. But Orbán was not impressed and did not even show up for the press conference after the meeting.
“Anyone who wants to go should go,” says Marine Le Pen
Marine Le Pen, on the other hand, was the one who made rambling statements about French domestic politics there. After more and more former supporters of her formation Rassemblement National were rallying behind right-wing extremist Éric Zemmour, Le Pen said in Madrid: “Anyone who wants to go should go, but best right now.” Le Pen, it is said afterwards, did not sign the part of the joint statement that referred to Russia.
At the “Madrid Summit,” as Vox dubbed the meeting, each guest followed a little bit of their own agenda. And Vox man Buxadé was pretty lonely at the end when he called the event a “resounding success”.