Steve Bannon's plan for Europe

 

Steve Bannon's plan for Europe centered on creating a unified, trans-national coalition of right-wing populist and nationalist parties to disrupt the European Union from within.

His primary strategy involved an organization called "The Movement," based in Brussels, which aimed to serve as a right-wing alternative to George Soros's Open Society Foundations.

 

Core Objectives

Create a "Supergroup": Bannon aimed to unite disparate populist parties to win at least one-third of the seats in the European Parliament. This bloc would then be used to paralyze EU integration and decision-making.

National Sovereignty: He sought to dismantle the "party of Davos" (globalist elites) and return power to individual nation-states with their own borders and identities.

Campaign Support: The foundation was intended to provide parties with advanced polling, data analytics, and messaging strategies, modeled after his work with the Trump campaign and Cambridge Analytica.

Ideological Warfare: He identified key battlegrounds as migration, the fight against "radical Islam," and the defense of "Judeo-Christian" values.

 

Key Alliances and Targets

Success in Italy: Bannon found his most willing partners in Italy, working closely with Matteo Salvini (Lega) and Giorgia Meloni (Fratelli d'Italia).

Wider Outreach: He courted major figures like Viktor Orbán (Hungary), Marine Le Pen (France), Nigel Farage (UK), and leaders of the AfD (Germany).

Implementation and Failure

Despite the hype, the plan largely stalled or failed due to several factors:

Electoral Laws: Most European countries have strict bans or limits on foreign political funding and campaign assistance, making Bannon’s intended "war room" services potentially illegal.

Nationalist Friction: European populist parties are often deeply nationalist; many leaders, including Le Pen and Germany's AfD, were reluctant to take orders or help from an American outsider.

The Movement's Closure: By late 2019, the organization was in disarray, and by 2020, its Belgian co-founder, Mischaël Modrikamen, declared that "there was no Movement any more".

 

Funding Scandals: Recent reports in 2026 have linked Bannon’s efforts to tap figures like Jeffrey Epstein for funding to bolster European far-right parties in 2018–2019.