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Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and the poll-topping far-right parties of Austria and the Czech Republic have announced plans to form a new faction in the European parliament, pledging to end support for Ukraine and push for peace talks with Russia.

“Historians will decide in a few years’ time how important this day was — we think this is the day when European policy begins to change,” Orbán said on Sunday at a press conference in Vienna.

“The Brussels elite is resisting. They do not accept the decision of the European [voters]. They don’t want change, they want to hold on to the status quo. That is unacceptable. That is why this current joint group and platform is being created,” he said.

The announcement comes as negotiations to form political blocs enter their final days following European parliament elections in June in which far-right parties made gains across the continent.

The Patriots for Europe, as the proposed new alliance has dubbed itself, will need to sign up MEPs from at least four other EU member states by Thursday to become an official faction, unlocking additional funding, bargaining power and parliamentary leadership roles.

Its founding parties — Austria’s Freedom party (FPÖ), the Czech Republic’s ANO, which recently dropped out of the liberal Renew group, and Hungary’s Fidesz — already have 26 MEPs between them. A group needs at least 23 lawmakers from seven countries to be able to form.

“From this starting signal, all political forces who wish to do so and who want to join in our political and positive reform efforts are very welcome. And from what I have heard in the last few days, there will be more of them,” said FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl. 

FPÖ — which doubled its EU parliamentary seats and is on course to win the Austrian national election in September — is the organising force behind the alliance, which Kickl said was a “carrier rocket” for radical change in Brussels. 

The announcement marks a formal break between the FPÖ and France’s Rassemblement National, led by Marine Le Pen, in Europe. In the previous parliament the two sat in the Identity and Democracy (ID) group.

The RN is expected to emerge as France’s leading party in the first round of voting on Sunday in the country’s election. In Europe, the RN’s efforts to moderate its views in order to secure votes at home have slowly opened a rift with more hardline parties, however.

Le Pen forced the expulsion of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party from ID after its lead election candidate said not all Nazi SS soldiers were criminals. The exclusion was opposed by FPÖ.

Attitudes towards Russia have emerged as a crucial dividing line on the right, with ultraconservative parties such as Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) and Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy staunchly opposed to any rapprochement with Moscow over Ukraine.

However, the PiS party has not ruled out joining the new group. “We are observing developments,” said an official.

“We will not stand idly by and watch a European superstate develop in which the parliaments of the member states are reduced to a kind of folklore department,” said Kickl, calling for a more forthright agenda against Europe’s “radical centrism”. His opening remarks also contained numerous reference to “peace” with Russia.

The FPÖ has a long history of close relations with President Vladimir Putin, and has been harshly critical of Ukraine since Russia began its full-scale invasion of its neighbour in 2022. 

Alongside Orbán and Kickl, ANO’s Andrej Babiš signed a “patriotic manifesto” that they have sent to other far-right parties in Europe as the founding text of the proposed new faction.

“We are here together because we are united by three main priorities that will define our policies in the EU. The defence of sovereignty, the fight against illegal migration and the revision of the Green Deal [plan to combat climate change],” said Babis. 

One powerful potential member would be Germany’s AfD, which has 14 MEPs.

But Hungary’s Fidesz is opposed to teaming up with the German party, according to an AfD official. Leader Alice Weidel told the Financial Times she would keep her options open and not join a group just for the sake of joining.

Despite their increase in the number of seats, far-right parties do not seem on track to wield more power in the EU assembly as they are splintering into more groups than in the former parliament. Simon Hix, professor of politics at the European University Institute, said this development would increase the likelihood that the largest group, the centre-right European People’s party, will pivot to towards the centre and centre-left.

“We’re heading for the most fragmented parliament we’ve ever had. But the fragmentation on the far right will strengthen the centrist coalition, as the EPP will have nowhere else to go.”

For months before the first debate, the nation’s voters repeatedly expressed doubts over whether President Biden had the cognitive health enough to serve. 

Today, those doubts have grown even more: now at nearly three-quarters of the electorate, and now including many within his own party.

And today, after the debate with former President Trump, an increased number of voters, including many Democrats, don’t think Mr. Biden should be running for president at all. Nearly half his party doesn’t think he should now be the nominee.

(Trump, for his part, does better, but still only gets half the electorate thinking he has the cognitive health to serve.)

The move came across the partisan board, but it includes a double-digit movement among Democrats, and movement among independents.

Given that, today nearly three in four voters also don’t think Mr. Biden should be running for president in the first place. That’s a higher-percentage sentiment than in February, when almost two-thirds said he should not run.

Most voters who say he shouldn’t run say it’s both about his campaigning and his effectiveness in office, along with his age.

But Democrats’ concerns, when expressed, lean more toward the strategic. They are worried more about his ability to campaign than his decision-making as president.

Trump, by contrast, finds a wide view among Republicans that he should be running. 

That comes as voters widely believe that in the debate, Trump presented his ideas more clearly, appeared more presidential, inspired more confidence, explained his policies better and —quite simply — won the debate. 

This is the case, despite the fact that voters overall think Trump was not as truthful.

And it’s relative, of course. There are plenty of voters who think neither candidate did well.

These views are very similar whether people watched the debate live or just watched highlights or coverage about it, which may speak more generally to the way people get and process information in the modern era.

And Mr. Biden has made no meaningful inroads on convincing voters that a second term would make them financially better off: Trump still is seen as better on this measure.

Nor has Mr. Biden cast himself as better than Donald Trump at protecting democracy.

What now?

After the debate, some Democratic officials reportedly said Joe Biden should step aside as the nominee and give another Democrat a chance to run for president in 2024.

That idea finds resonance with nearly half the nation’s rank-and-file Democrats. 

That’s related to perceptions of Mr. Biden’s health: Democrats who don’t think Mr. Biden has the mental and cognitive health to serve are more likely to say he shouldn’t be the nominee.

And that former number has increased among Democrats. (It’s also gone up among independents.)

The debate has brought the presidential race front and center to the minds of registered voters. Now 59% of registered voters say they are thinking a lot about the presidential race, up from 48% just a few days ago. Interest has risen among Democrats and Republicans alike.

This CBS News/YouGov survey is based on a national sample of 1,130 registered voters who were contacted between June 28-29, 2024. All respondents participated in an earlier national survey of 1,881 registered voters fielded June 17-21, 2024. The sample was weighted by gender, age, race, and education, based on the U.S. Census American Community Survey and Current Population Survey, as well as past vote and partisan identification and weighted to account for differential response rates. The margin of error for the sample of registered voters is ±4.2  points.