Full house in Paris – Ordo Iuris and MCC presented a vision for reform of the European Union

On Tuesday in Paris, a very successful meeting took place with more than 50 representatives of the French right in attendance. During the event, the Ordo Iuris Institute, together with the Hungarian Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), presented a French-language version of the proposal for the reform of the European Union authored by both institutions. It was another — but certainly not the last — in the series of European presentations of the document titled “The Great Reset: Restoring Member State Sovereignty in the European Union.” Previously, the report was presented, among other places, in Budapest, Warsaw, Madrid, and Brussels—at the European Parliament, at the invitation of the Patriots for Europe group.

The presentation in Paris was held at the House of Argentina, on the beautiful and historic grounds of the University of Paris. The event was organized jointly with French partners with extensive contacts across the broader French right—the Institute of Political Education (Institut de Formation Politique, IFP) and the Tocqueville Scholarship (Bourse Tocqueville). These are non-governmental organizations that educate France’s future elites—the difference being that, unlike state institutions, they do so from a standpoint of conservative and patriotic values, free from the left-liberal ideology that still dominates in France.

The Ordo Iuris Institute was represented by its director of communications, Olivier Bault, a Frenchman who has been living in Poland for many years. Speaking on behalf of MCC was Rodrigo Ballester, director of the Center for European Studies, a Spaniard fluent in French.

The Polish-Hungarian proposals to reform the European Union in the spirit of restoring nation-states’ lost sovereignty attracted a great deal of interest. English-language reports by Ordo Iuris concerning the EU centralization project, adopted by the European Parliament in November 2023, as well as its analysis of the EU Migration Pact in a Q&A format, also attracted considerable attention.

The room was packed to capacity. Among the participants were deputies and politicians representing all currents of the French right—from the center-right Republicans (LR), through Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN), Éric Ciotti’s UPR (bringing together former LR politicians who entered into an alliance with RN), Éric Zemmour’s Reconquête and Marion Maréchal’s Identity and Freedoms, to smaller groups such as Florian Philippot’s Patriots or Jean‑Frédéric Poisson’s Via – Voice of the Nation.

Journalists from the leading French right-wing media outlets were also present, including CNews, TV Libertés, Radio Courtoisie, Radio Notre-Dame, Le Figaro, Le Monde, Valeurs Actuelles, Causeur, JDD, Boulevard Voltaire, Tocsin Média, Témoin Média, Omerta Média, The European Conservative, The Epoch Times, as well as independent journalists and essayists.

The meeting was also attended by representatives of leading French think tanks: Institut Iliade, Périclès, ECLJ, Conseil National de la Réforme, Cercle Droit & Liberté, Institut National des Affaires Stratégiques et Politiques, Cercle Arcole, and Le Nid. Some independent academics and intellectuals had also answered to the invitation of the organizers—the Ordo Iuris Institute, MCC, IFP, and Bourse Tocqueville—and were present.

Not only the French version of the report “The Great Reset”, which presents Polish-Hungarian proposals for EU reform, but also the English versions of the reports on the “European superstate” project and on the EU migration pact—nearly 30 kilograms of materials in total—were snapped up by participants in no time.

After the welcome remarks delivered by the IFP director Alexandre Pesey, Olivier Bault and Rodrigo Ballester presented proposals for a profound reform of the European Union, contrasting them with the project of the left-liberal elites dominant in Brussels. After the presentation, the speakers answered numerous questions from the attendees, and then conversations continued during the cocktail reception, which lasted more than two hours.

On Wednesday morning, the communications director of the Ordo Iuris Institute once again presented the key points of European Union reform—this time on Radio Courtoisie’s popular morning program „Ligne Droite”.

During the Paris meeting, the Ordo Iuris Institute received a promise from its partners to translate into French the report “Why Do We Need Sovereignty? Ten areas of the proposed surrender of national sovereignty in light of the European Parliament’s resolution on proposals for the amending of the Treaties” and the analysis „The European Union’s Migration Pact and Border Protection in Questions and Answers.” Olivier Bault and Rodrigo Ballester were also invited to another presentation—this time of a new report by both institutions focused on the repatriation of powers in the field of migration policy from Brussels to the member states.