From Madrid to MAGA: How Spain’s Vox forged a right-wing network with global reach

With Hungary’s Viktor Orbán gone, Spain’s nationalist Vox party is set to play an increasingly central role as a bridge linking Europe’s far right to political allies worldwide — from South America to MAGA in Washington.

Unlike Orbán’s Fidesz or Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France, which have spent decades shaping national and European politics, Vox is a relative newcomer, having only entered Spain’s parliament in 2019.

But it is a force on the march. Pollsters expect Vox to double its parliamentary representation in Spain’s upcoming Nov. 29 election, potentially making it an indispensable partner in a coalition government led by conservative People’s Party chief Alberto Núñez Feijóo.

If the polls hold true, Vox would then arrive in government with an outsized global influence relative to its domestic footprint — all thanks to an international network it has quietly cultivated over the past few years.

Through its Madrid-based Disenso Foundation, the party has established ties with Latin American leaders such as Argentina’s Javier Milei and Chile’s José Antonio Kast, while forging relationships with influential figures in the MAGA movement in Washington.

Though distinct, the movements are bound by a common rejection of the political establishment. “This isn’t about occupying more space. This is a movement,” Jorge Martín Frías, a Vox member of the European Parliament and director of the Disenso Foundation, told POLITICO in Madrid. Vox’s allies, the lawmaker said, “face the same obstacles, the same labels, the same desire to annihilate them … And that’s how a sense of brotherhood develops.”

That same spirit of cooperation has helped Vox establish itself as a trusted partner to Europe’s right. Its leader, Santiago Abascal, now heads Patriots.eu, the pan-European political group that brings together Fidesz and the National Rally, as well as other far-right parties like Italy’s Lega, Belgium’s Vlaams Belang and Portugal’s Chega.

Frank Furedi, president of the Brussels-based Freedom & Sovereignty Initiative Europe, a conservative think tank formed by the core team behind MCC Brussels, said Vox had “been remarkably effective in carving out a niche for themselves as a movement that’s open to other political forces.”

Guillermo Fernández Vázquez, a political scientist at Madrid’s Carlos III University, said Vox’s strategy had allowed it to amass international influence well beyond what its electoral strength would suggest.

“Vox is an electorally modest party in the European context of the far right,” he said. “But it’s nonetheless become a communications node, a bridge, a hinge between the new Latin American right, the European far right and the Trumpist right.”

Across the Atlantic

Vox has been vocal about its interest in Ibero-America, which comprises Spain, Portugal and the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries of the Americas.

The “continent of hope,” Martín Frías says, is “already ahead of Europe, including in economic terms,” pointing to Milei’s chainsaw approach to deregulation in Argentina and Kast’s efforts to attract foreign investment in Chile through tax incentives and regulatory changes.

Right-wing leaders on the continent “are showing that it is possible to challenge the politics of resignation that have prevailed here — the status quo of the People’s Party and the Socialists,” he added.

Through the Disenso Foundation, created in 2020, the party has built an institutional network of conferences, political contacts and training programs. One of its main initiatives, Foro Madrid, brings together right-wing parties, politicians and organizations from across Latin America.

Vox has funneled millions of euros into Disenso over the last six years, giving it substantial resources to nurture its relationships across the pond.

According to political scientist Fernández Vázquez, Vox identified and reached out to figures like Milei and Kast when their respective movements were still relatively small. Those early contacts have since developed into relationships with leaders who now hold power or occupy prominent positions in their countries.

The network has also given Abascal direct access to some of the region’s most prominent political figures, such as Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado. During an April visit to Madrid, she met with the Vox leader while notably declining an offer to meet Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

Martín Frías attributed Vox’s success in building an international network to its refusal to simply export a Spanish political model and its ability not to get caught up in disagreements over national interests.

He pointed to Argentina’s support for the EU-Mercosur trade deal, which Vox opposes. “Each country, and each leader, applies its own rules to defend its national interests, which in some cases will be contrary to ours,” he said. “That’s only logical … That’s the game we’re all playing.”

For Vox, Latin America is part of a wider network that includes Washington. Indeed, Martín Frías has taken the party’s message directly to the American conservative establishment, attending the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington in 2024 alongside Abascal and speaking at events organized by the right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation, including the 2026 Miami Security Forum.

SPAIN NATIONAL PARLIAMENT POLL OF POLLS

For more polling data from across Europe visit POLITICO Poll of Polls.

Furedi said Vox’s most prominent members have displayed a level of interest in Latin America rarely found among their European far-right counterparts. The party, he argued, was interested not just in building political alliances but in fostering “a more dynamic contemporary Hispanic culture.”

Balázs Orbán, Viktor Orbán’s former political director and a senior figure in Hungary’s MCC, told POLITICO that Vox had been able to forge a transatlantic “connection” through the party’s “sophisticated” approach and its members’ ability to speak both English and Spanish.

Back to Brussels

Vox’s approach to language and identity has undoubtedly given it an edge in Brussels.

The party has taken note of others’ mistakes, including those of Le Pen’s National Rally, whose failure to build strong ties with the wider far right has been partly attributed to its members’ refusal to engage in languages other than French.

“[The National Rally] may speak English, but they refuse to speak English … With Vox, there isn’t this desire to speak Spanish and make a big deal out of the fact that they’re very proud of their language. They’re much more relaxed about it,” Furedi said.

Fernández Vázquez said this had helped Vox position itself as a broker in Europe and led other far-right figures to view Abascal as a safe choice to lead Patriots, capable of balancing Le Pen and Orbán’s rival ambitions.

With Orbán’s fall, many are now competing for the influence he once wielded.

“Fidesz obviously wants to maintain its relevance and authority,” Furedi said. “The Italians — [Brothers of Italy] in particular — are also quite keen, with Meloni wanting to be seen as the equivalent of what Orbán was at a certain point.” But Vox stands out due to its consolidated role as both an “honest broker” and global interlocutor, he added.

Vox’s Martín Frías rejected the suggestion that his group was simply waiting to inherit Fidesz’s mantle. Instead, he said, the goal was to unite like-minded parties against institutions such as the European Commission, which he accused of undermining the European Union — a political project which he described as “a good invention.”

The National Rally’s Jordan Bardella similarly said earlier this year his party would not seek to leave the EU, but instead transform it from within and “change everything without destroying anything.”

Like Martín Frías, Balázs Orbán rejected the notion of a far-right handover and referred to the beginnings of a broader alliance, including Hungary’s former prime minister and his party.

“Viktor Orbán always played a very important role in the patriotic movement. He is the founding father and one of its intellectual leading figures,” he said, adding that now that Fidesz is “no longer in government, we have more time to spend in Brussels and speed things up.”

Martín Frías expressed optimism for what Spain’s upcoming election would mean for Vox’s broader mission in Europe.

“Changes of government in European countries can lead to changes in the European Council,” he said, outlining a vision of an EU made up of sovereign nations that pursue their own interests while cooperating where their goals align. “There is an opportunity there to correct everything that is wrong, and to even regain citizens’ trust in the institutions.”

That shift, he argued, is already visible in the European Parliament, where the center-right European People’s Party increasingly “has no choice” but to work with the Patriots.

“They don’t do it out of principle,” Martín Frías said. “They do it because they’re afraid of the electorate.”