The European Right is Consolidating

https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/far-right-leaders-agree-on-roadmap-for-sovereign-and-patriotic-europe/

While a formal bloc has not yet been created, a unified agenda is coming together. This represents an early phase, a kind of proto-fascist bloc beginning to form within the EU.

The fact that they're meeting openly, and publically revealing such statements represents a proverbial 'shot across the bow', a warning to the EU and Atlanticist Establishments.

A Sovereign and Patriotic Europe are dog whistles and code words for fascist policies. It represents the dismantling of the EU into a kind of federation that will employ nationalism as a basis – and thus anti-immigrant, and ultimately anti-Atlanticist policies are implied.

It's a threat to both Brussels and the interests of Washington but as always the equation is more complicated. There are forces within Europe itself, even within the EU Establishment that support these movements – to a point. Nations like Germany and France are transcending EU accountability and seek their own agendas which can utilise the EU but often transcend it. The Establishments within these nations find elements of the Far Right useful in that they can help to push and tweak certain policies to the Right. But of course they're playing with fire because if they lose control of the narrative and the political process, these Far Right elements can come into power and risk destroying the very Establishments that seek to manage them.

Sections of the American Establishment have found common cause with some of these figures like Viktor Orban and the Visegrad Four (V4) which provides a check to the ambitions of Brussels. And yet they also represent a danger as (for the moment) Washington desperately needs a united Europe to help in its campaign against Russia – and for the further justification of NATO.

These groups are not wholly unified. There are tensions at work with regard to Europeanism, Euroscepticism, NATO, and whether or not Russia is viewed as an antagonist. And you can be sure that elements in both Brussels and Washington will continue to work these angles and try and amplify these differences in order to break this bloc apart before it can properly form. And yet on that note it needs to be realised that this interaction is vis-à-vis their public actions and declarations. It is certain there's a lot more being said and planned behind the scenes and off the public stage.

What's really problematic from a Christian standpoint is that American Evangelicals and elements of the Christian Right are finding common cause with some of these groups. Hungary's Fidesz and Italy's Lega are not only Far Right parties but they are both flirting with fascism and in some cases have what might be called a fascist fringe. And yet they're being championed by some in American circles – increasingly the same Evangelical groups and institutions that are aligning with Trumpism.

And then to make matters worse you have these groups finding common cause and sharing the stage with parties like Spain's Vox and France's National Rally (formerly Front National) which endorse fascist ideology and in the case of the NR/FN have actual fascistic roots.

Then to complete the circle, due to American Dominionist influence over the past twenty-plus years there's been a shift in European Evangelicalism and growing numbers (who once eschewed Right-wing ideology) and quickly falling prey to these groups and their rhetoric.