Spain’s far-right Vox party held an event on the outskirts of the Spanish capital on Sunday, bringing together hardline figures from across Europe (and Mirei in Argentina) to rally the party’s support base ahead of June’s European Parliament elections.
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Europe’s far-right parties launched an informal campaign for the European Union elections in Spain on Sunday, taking a strong stance against illegal immigration and EU climate change policies, as well as declaring support for Israel in its fight against Hamas.
France’s National Rally party leader Marine Le Pen and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni sought to rally voters at an event in Madrid organised by Spain’s far-right party Vox.
Meloni, whose party, the Italian Brothers, has its roots in supporters of World War II fascist leader Benito Mussolini, urged young people in a video call in Spanish to vote. “You are the only future of Europe,” he said.
Defence of the EU’s borders was another key theme on the final day of a two-day conference organised by Vox at an arena on the outskirts of the Spanish capital.
“We are not against human rights, but we want strong borders in Europe because they are ours,” said Andre Ventura, leader of Xega, a hardline populist party that won the third-largest number of seats in Portugal’s parliament earlier this year.
“We cannot continue to have a mass influx of Muslims and Muslim immigrants into Europe,” he added.
While Meloni defended his country’s policy of reaching agreements with third countries to curb illegal immigration, Le Pen called for reform of the Schengen Agreement, which “allows European countries to choose who enters and leaves their territory.”
Vox president Santiago Abascal called for far-right unity ahead of the European elections.
“In the face of globalism, we must respond with a global alliance of patriots to defend common sense, economic prosperity, security and freedom, because we share threats and that brings us together,” Abascal said.
The vote will show whether the continent’s political trends are in line with the rightward shift being seen in other parts of the world, including the Netherlands, Slovakia and Argentina.
Argentina’s liberal President Javier Milley, who was hailed like a star amid chants of “freedom,” used the spotlight to blast Spain’s socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his wife, something unthinkable for most heads of state visiting a long-time ally.
“They don’t know what kind of society and country socialism produces, what kind of people are tied to power and the level of abuse it produces,” Millay said in a speech before speaking out against corruption allegations against Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gomez.
“Even if he has a wife who is corrupt, he does something dirty and thinks about it for five days,” he said, referring to the time it took Sánchez to consider whether to resign after the allegations came to light.
The Spanish government responded by demanding an apology from Milley and threatening to recall its ambassador to Buenos Aires over the remarks, with Foreign Minister José Manuel Álvarez saying they had “plunged relations between Spain and Argentina into the most serious situation they have in recent years.”
Analysts say the vote in June across the 27 EU member states could see a strong rise of the far-right.
