From closed-door conferences in Paris to policy summits in Madrid and Warsaw, US-style nationalism, championed by Donald Trump’s allies, is gaining ground in Europe – raising urgent questions about the future of democracy on both sides of the Atlantic.
On 26 May, the Heritage Foundation, the influential United States conservative think tank, chose Paris as its platform to speak to Europe.
Kevin Roberts, the foundation’s president, delivered a keynote address at a closed-door gathering of European nationalists and conservatives, stressing unity against "globalist institutions" and a desire for “sovereign cooperation” over centralised governance.
One day later, the US State Department's Substack channel published an article by Samuel D. Samson, "Senior Advisor for the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor", entitled The Need for Civilizational Allies in Europe.
The article argues that the US–Europe alliance must be rooted in shared Western values such as natural law and national sovereignty. It warns that "rising censorship and political repression" in Europe risk "eroding democracy," thus weakening this vital partnership.
For those tracking transatlantic conservative networks, this was just the latest sign of a deepening alliance.
In February, in Madrid, key members of the European Parliament's far-right Patriots for Europe coalition, including Spain’s Vox party, the Netherlands’ PVV, France’s National Rally, and Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party, met to consolidate their agenda.
Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, took centre stage, urging “true Europeans” to reject the “Brussels elite” in favour of a new, sovereign-focused Union.
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Behind the scenes of these gatherings lie two quietly influential institutions: the Ordi Iuris Institute for Legal Culture in Poland, and the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) in Budapest.
Both are close collaborators of the Heritage Foundation, sharing strategy, ideology and, according to critics, a vision for dismantling liberal democratic safeguards in favour of nationalist governance.
These institutions are strongly inspired by Heritage’s "Presidential Transition Project 2025, a Mandate for Leadership” – a comprehensive blueprint for a second Trump presidency.
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The European outlets followed their own policy manifestos aimed at reshaping the European Union. They argue not for reform, but for a structural reinvention of the EU, one that re-empowers nation-states and neuters the authority of central bodies such as the European Commission.
"We diagnosed the European Union as a failed organisation," said Zbigniew Przybylowski, development director at Ordo Iuris.
"It has promised to deliver number one status in economics ... and it failed. This is not by accident, it is because of how the European Union functions, and we want to fix it," he told RFI.
That “fix” takes the form of a sweeping plan: eliminate the Commission, empower the European Council, and reframe Europe as a consortium of sovereign, competitive states – "a new beginning” according to Rodrigo Ballester of the MCC.
“You may say we want to create a ‘tabula rasa’,” he says. “We’ve presented this report in Washington, Madrid, Budapest and Brussels. And it hit a nerve, because it’s the first coherent alternative to the European consensus since Maastricht.
But critics see more than just policy realignments.
US Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat, argues that Trump’s ideological ties to European strongmen reveal a deeper ambition: to emulate Orban’s “quasi-autocratic” model at home.
“It’s an open secret that Trump’s political infrastructure has been working with Viktor Orban’s political infrastructure and other enemies of democracy in and around Europe,” Murphy warned. “He’s copying what they have done.”
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And that influence goes both ways. According to Kenneth Haar, a campaigner with Corporate Europe Observatory: “The Heritage Foundation spearheaded Project 2025 to prepare the first 100 days of a Trump presidency. What we’re seeing in Europe now – joint reports, lobbying efforts in Brussels, an anti-centralisation crusade – you can trace it back to the same playbook.”
Indeed, Ordo Iuris organised a major international summit in Warsaw last autumn, bringing together conservative figures from across Europe and the United States. Heritage took a prominent seat.
“They have a choice of calling us Putin agents or Trump agents,” Przybylowski says. “But these carry no meaning. What we want is a discussion about our countries falling... We want to restore healthy competition and dismantle technocratic over-reach.”
While the goals may seem rooted in ideology, the tactics reveal a pragmatic, coalitionist approach.
MCC and Ordo Iuris both emphasise their preference for national sovereignty, democratic mandates, and “bottom-up” governance – and their hostility to what Przybylowski of Ordo Iuris describes as a “Soviet Union II”, referring to what they perceive as EU centralisation.
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Great Reset
In 2024, MCC and Ordo Iuris jointly published "The Great Reset", a 41-page report calling for sweeping EU reforms to restore national sovereignty and curb Brussels’ power.
Alarmed by 267 proposed treaty amendments, the report advocates limiting EU competences, reinstating unanimity voting, elevating national leaders over supranational bodies and allowing member states greater autonomy through “à la carte integration".
It proposes either a major institutional rebalancing or, failing that, the replacement of the EU with a looser alliance of nations. Critics argue the plan threatens democracy, minority rights and the stability of European integration.
This overlapping of American and European radical-right networks raises concerns. “They are active players in everyday politics," Haar told RFI. "They push anti-LGBT and anti-abortion sentiment not only in their own countries, but at the European level too."
He added that Ordo Iuris was instrumental in limiting the right to abortion in Poland a few years ago. "They do that through work in the courts and they do that through political connections," he said.
Critics such as Haar fear that for these organisations, democracy is a means to power, not necessarily a principle.
As Murphy puts it: “Trump doesn’t want American democracy to persevere. He wants to transition America ... and he's learned from people like Viktor Orban and Erdogan who have engaged in that transition.”
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Yet MCC's Ballester counters that his project is neither anti-European nor anti-democratic, but rather corrective. He sees Brussels as dominated by a “dogmatic” culture, resistant to criticism.
“Too many see the EU as a cult,” he said. “Any criticism is treated like blasphemy.”
Whether one views these initiatives as a long-overdue radical rethink or as a Trojan horse for democratic backsliding, it is clear that the MAGA movement's nationalist template is being eagerly adopted and adapted across Europe.
The result could be a continent less interested in integration and more committed to divergence – one where the language of sovereignty increasingly trumps solidarity.
