The Heritage Foundation, the organization behind Project 2025, invited European friends to discuss how to “reset” the European Union. From Denik Alarm.

Writing on Vsquare, the platform for investigative journalism, the Hungarian journalist Szabolcs Panyi has presented another example of the lively cooperation between ultra-conservative organizations in Hungary and Poland on the one hand, and people directly connected to the Trump administration on the other. And this is not just any cooperation. The main topic of the closed workshop, which took place on 11 March in the seat of the U.S. think tank the Heritage Foundation, is how to dismantle the institutions of the European Union.

The Great Reset

The Heritage Foundation has been active since the 1970s. Throughout this time, it has been associated with ultra-conservative thinking within the Republican Party and with the ideology of Christian nationalism. Over the last year, it has been most often discussed in relation to Project 2025, an 800-page long manual for how ultra-conservative forces should take power in the United States if Trump is elected president. A number of the measures mentioned in the document have already started to be implemented by the new Trump administration. Russell Vought, an important personality at the Heritage Foundation, who is also said to be personally behind Project 2025, is the director of Trump’s federal Office of Management and Budget.

And it is this organization which, according to the Hungarian journalist, sent out to its followers information about the closed workshop “The Great Reset,” at which the Polish ultra-conservative organization Ordo Iuris and Hungary’s Mathias Corvinus Collegium were to present their vision of “resetting” the EU. The two organizations were to present a joint plan to dismantle the European Commission and the European Court of Justice, entitled “The Great Reset: Restoring Member State Sovereignty in the 21st Century.” Among other things, they are suggesting the European Union change its name to the European Community of Nations. They also want to stop the process of European integration.

The very use of the far-right term “great reset,” which is popular on the scene of conspiracy theories about the origins of COVID-19, says something about the background of the two organizations. Ordo Iuris is an ultra-conservative, anti-abortion, and homophobic organization, which has helped pass stricter anti-abortion legislation in Poland, among other things. It has strong ties to Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s Law and Justice party. In the Czech context, it is working with the similarly inclined lobbying group Alliance for Family, headed by Jana Jochova. Mathias Corvinus Collegium is a private educational institution based in Budapest, funded by the state and connected to the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his Fidesz party, which is supposed to provide the collegium with high-quality and reliable cadres. It is funded from the dividends of the Hungarian oil and gas corporation MOL, which still imports 65 percent of its gas and oil directly from the Russian Federation.

The two institutions (as well as the Orban government and the former Kaczynski government) have long opposed a closer integration of European countries, seeking to prevent European institutions and European legislation from having an impact on the judicial systems of the member states. It is for this reason that their document includes a proposal to de facto abolish the European Court of Justice. The governments in both Poland and Hungary had an issue with the fact that their judicial reforms, as well as their measures against public media, did not comply with EU principles, for which they were financially penalized. Clearly, Hungarian and Polish conservatives do not wish to see this scenario repeated in the future.

The U.S. As an Ally of the Far Right

This is not the first – or the only – cooperation between the Heritage Foundation and Hungarian conservative organizations associated with Orban and Fidesz. There had already been talk of cooperation between Heritage and the Danube Institute, which is also linked to Orban and publicly funded. Since March 2023, the two institutions have had an agreement on cooperation. There is also speculation about whether Orban’s close associates may be helping Republicans in the U.S. to take control of U.S. institutions and courts. Moreover, there is also talk of how much input Orban’s people had directly into creating Project 2025.

When the U.S. Vice President JD Vance gave his arrogant speech at the Munich conference in mid-February, it was an obvious attack on the liberal and social values of the European Union. There has also been talk of Trump, Vance, and Elon Musk aiming to dismantle European institutions, with the help of far-right forces in Europe. A major role should be played in this plan by the Patriots for Europe political group (in the European Parliament), comprising Orban, Marine Le Pen, Austrian post-Nazis in the FPO, as well as the ANO party of former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis.  By the way, Orban has long supported the idea that Germany’s extremist and far-right party AfD should also join the group, and he may soon get his way.

The dismantling of the EU and its institutions is also the objective for many far-right parties in Europe. In this effort, they will try to make good use of the support of Trump and of American tech giants, such as Facebook or X, to influence the opinion of the European public. All of this is supposed to lead to a gradual dismantling of the European Union. It is clear that the current U.S. administration would welcome a weak, fragmented, and easy-to-blackmail Europe. The Russian leadership, led by Vladimir Putin, has had a similar long-term objective. It is not as clear why the European far right would also share this objective. However, they seek absolute power over the European continent and to complete the conservative counter-revolution. A weakened EU can serve as the perfect tool to mobilize disappointed and frustrated voters.

People from the Heritage Foundation, directly linked to the Trump administration, are now meeting behind closed doors with Hungarian and Polish ultra-conservatives, discussing how to best break up the EU. Does anybody really need further proof of why it’s not a good idea to cooperate with the current U.S. administration, and why at the moment, the U.S. should not be considered an ally of liberal and social Europe? Trump and his allies are actively strengthening the influence of far-right political subjects in Europe. This is perfectly logical, since the agenda of the Trump administration is also of the far right.

Jan Belicek is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Denik Alarm, where this article originally appeared. Reprinted by permission. Translated by Matus Nemeth.