Czech Communist leader joins far-right EU political grouping

Kateřina Konečná, the former chairwoman of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM), announced today she has joined the Patriots for Europe faction in the European Parliament.

An MEP since 2014, she wasn’t a member of any political grouping in the European Parliament since the start of her latest mandate, which she argued limited her ability to push her program and policies in the EU’s legislative body.

She was the leader of KSČM from 2021 to May 2026 and is currently one of the co-leaders of Stačilo! – an electoral alliance and political coalition between KSČM and several other far-left parties which failed to win any seats in last year’s Czech parliamentary elections.

“This decision did not come about suddenly. It is the result of a long-term evaluation of options,” Konečná wrote in a Facebook post published on Wednesday. “Our internal analysis of votes in the European Parliament so far and the political statements of individual factions showed that the program of the Stačilo! coalition has the highest degree of overlap with the Patriots for Europe faction.”

“I have been and will continue to be a patriot… only now I will have more space to promote what we went into the election with,” she argued.

Formed in 2024 at the initiative of then-Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, ANO leader and current Czech PM Andrej Babiš and Herbert Kickl, the chairman of Austria’s far-right FPÖ party, Patriots for Europe has been the third-largest political faction in the European Parliament since the 2024 EU elections.

Generally described as a gathering of far-right, Eurosceptic and sovereigntist parties, other members of the Patriots for Europe include France’s National Rally – whose leader Jordan Bardella chairs the faction – as well as Czechia’s Motorist Party, Denmark’s Danish People’s Party, Italy’s Lega, the Netherlands’ Party for Freedom, Portugal’s Chega and Spain’s Vox, among a few others.

While far from a homogeneous group, members of the Patriots for Europe tend a share an anti-immigration and anti-Green Deal stance, Eurosceptic attitudes and criticism towards Western and European aid to Ukraine.

“We at Patriots do not deal with ideology but with common sense, and we are happy for every MEP who wants to apply common sense in this difficult fight,” welcomed Klára Dostálová, an MEP for Czechia’s ruling ANO party.

Czech opposition parties, meanwhile, sharply criticized the announcement, with STAN’s Danuše Nerudová reminding that Konečná “votes against aid to Ukraine, against sanctions on Russia and against the interests of the Czech Republic. All that remains is to congratulate her,” she added sarcastically.