Volkswacht Bodensee - EU's largest far-right bloc to rally in Madrid next week

Patriots for Europe will meet on February 7 and 8 under the presidency of Vox leader Santiago Abascal to outline their strategy for the coming months, party spokesman Jose Antonio Fuster told reporters.

The group has realigned the EU far right and became the parliament's third-largest force after Orban helped launched it last year to shift Brussels rightwards.

Its 84 lawmakers include France's National Rally, the Party for Freedom of Dutch anti-Islam firebrand Geert Wilders, Vox, Austria's Freedom Party and Chega from Portugal.

The bloc overtook the European Conservatives and Reformists, associated with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy party, after last year's EU elections where the far right performed strongly in several countries.

Fuster said there was an alternative to the coalition between the European People's Party of European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and the Socialists and Democrats.

Slamming "their climate fanaticism and their open-door policies to mass immigration", Fuster said his group "represents millions of Europeans who want common sense to return to European institutions".

U.Maertens--VB