Europe’s conservatives supported by the US hopes that this is their moment to go mainstream

It has been a big week in Europe for CPAC, the US Conservative Political Action Conference, with large meetings in Poland and Hungary.

The timing is crucial, prior to the outcome of Poland on Sunday, between a nationalist, Karol Nawocki supported by CPAC, and the liberal mayor of Warsaw Rafal Trzaskowski, who describe CPAC speakers as a “struggle for Western civilization”.

Traditionally, a meeting place for conservative activists in America, the visibility of CPAC has risen with Donald Trump back in the White House and his Maga (Make America Great Again) movement in undisputed control over the Republican Party.

“This is not a meeting of the reports, but of those who endured,” said Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban the opening session on Thursday in Budapest.

Orban described President Trump as a “truth serum” and emphasized his vision of a new Europe, in what he calls “the age of Patriots” based on the nation, traditional family and his version of Christianity.

For tumultuous applause, he and other speakers mocked the green deal of the European Union and complained about mass immigration and “gender and awaken madness”.

In a conference room full of disco tans, flashy lights, video clips and celebrity showhosts, older politicians sometimes seemed blinded by all razzamatazz.

“Europeans do not feel safe in their own cities, houses and countries,” said Orban. “They are strangers in their own home. This is not integration, it is population replacement.”

It was a theme that was reflected by his guests Alice Weidel of the extreme right-wing AfD and Geert Wilders of Germany of the Freedom Party of the Netherlands.

This was a movement that wanted to reform the entire European project with his own brand of conservativism, in which ancient EU liberalism was thrown away.

Other speakers were Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and the leader of the Austrian Freedom Party Herbert Kickl.

Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss was also here, with the Australian ex-Prime Minister Tony Abbott and former Polish and Czech Primeiers Mateusz Morawiecki and Andrej Babis, in addition to a Scala of influential Republicans and South American politicians.

There was even a representative of the Rajendra Modi BJP in India, Ram Madhav.

In Warsaw on Tuesday, and then in Budapest, speakers explained the matter for what of them “an international nationalist movement called, a global platform for anti-globalistic troops”.

“In contrast to CPAC in the US, CPAC Hungary seems to have more intellectual substance. And it also serves as an opportunity – rare in Europe – for nationalist and populist politicians and activists to come together and network,” Rod Dreher told an editor of Budapest, told the Bbb.

“The promise of Viktor Orban to make Budapest to the intellectual capital of Dissident European Conservatism has come true.”

Orban enjoys that “dissident” theme, while more regular European conservatives such as the new Chancellor of Germany, Friedrich Merz, keep distance.

This week there is a feeling in Hungary and Poland that the Trump government is here to repay the support that Donald Trump received in his victory from nationalist leaders in Europe in November.

“If you choose a leader who will work with President Trump, the Polish people will have a strong ally,” said Kristi Name, the head of Trump’s Homeland Security at Warsaw CPAC conference.

“You will continue to have an American military presence here … and you will have equipment made American, high quality.”

She didn’t say what would happen if Karol Nawrocki didn’t win Sunday.

While the Maga movement in Europe – translated by Viktor Orban in Mega (Make Europe Again Great) – sounds confident, it has also passed setbacks, most recently with the liberal mayor of Bucharest, Nicusor then, winning Romania’s presidential elections.

In AlbaniaSali Berisha, the leader of the Democratic Party supported by Maga, lost this month’s parliamentary elections to the socialist EDI Rama. Former Trump -campaign strategist Chris Lacivita helped the Berisha campaign.

And in Austria The hope of Herbert Kickl to become Chancellor was interrupted by the formation of a new left-right coalition, which instead chose the Christian shares of the Austrian People’s Party.

The throne even fades under Viktor Orban, the host of the conference in Budapest.

Would his message, so fresh in the ears of his American admirers, could have gone old for Hungarians?

“If Nawrocki does not win in Poland, Hungary will be the next and Viktor Orban will lose power,” George Simion, the Romanian nationalist, defeated by Nicusor, warned in Warsaw. The following parliamentary elections from Hungary will be due in April next year.

There are also cracks in the facade of unity.

Ukraine and Russia remain a source of division. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was striking because of her absence.

And this week there was bad news for Viktor Orban – The Hungarian fertility percentage fell to 1.28 in April, almost as low as when he came to power in 2010, despite 15 years of tax and housing stimuli to encourage couples to have more children.

But when the seats were caught in the Congress Hall in Budapest on Friday evening, there was a mood of excavation, eyes that were trained on the drain in Poland.