The group that drafted a key blueprint for Donald Trump’s second term convened a meeting in Washington D.C. this week to consider proposals for bulldozing the European Union (EU).

The Polish investigative outlet VSquare revealed that the Heritage Foundation gathered hardline conservative groups on 11 March to hear how they would overhaul the current structures of the EU.

The “closed-door workshop” featured a debate on a new paper produced by the lobby groups MCC and Ordo Iuris entitled: “The Great Reset: Restoring Member State Sovereignty in the 21st Century”.

The paper proposes dismantling the European Commission and the European Court of Justice. It claims that the “EU is evolving into a quasi-federal state, limiting national decision-making power” and is imposing “ideologically motivated policies on member states, without any mandate”. Under the plan, the EU would cease to function in its current guise, and would instead be renamed the European Community of Nations (ECN).

Kenneth Haar, a researcher and campaigner at the transparency watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory, said it was “quite simply terrifying” to see the Heritage Foundation moving its attention to Europe.”

“Most of the attacks made by the Trump presidency in recent weeks on civil rights, on migrants, on LGBTQ+ rights and more, can be traced back to Project 2025,” he said. “We should be worried about them building up ambitions and strength in Europe.”

DeSmog can also reveal that the Heritage Foundation has been holding private meetings with European politicians in recent months, as the group attempts to forge new alliances on the continent.

MCC and Ordo Iuris have ties to national-conservative political parties that have been hostile to the EU’s agenda in recent years – in particular the bloc’s attempts to institute climate reforms.

Ordo Iuris has promoted an agenda often supported by Poland’s hard-right Law and Justice party, which ruled the country from 2015 to 2023. The party was accused of clamping down on democratic freedoms and the rights of minority groups while in power. Ordo Iuris itself has been accused of “spearheading an effort to roll back women’s and LGBT rights”.

MCC is directly backed by autocrat Viktor Orbán’s Hungarian government. The group is chaired by Orbán’s political director, Balázs Orbán, who has said: “It is our goal for Hungary to become an intellectual powerhouse, in which MCC plays a key role.”

In 2020, MCC received more than $1.3 billion in Hungarian state funding, largely via a 10 percent stake in the country’s national oil company.

MCC-Ordo Iuris document claims to support a reformed EU that “emphasises decentralisation, national interests, flexibility, deregulation, and a stronger role for member states.”

The Heritage Foundation led the way in creating Project 2025, the 922-page guide to radically retrenching the U.S. government. The blueprint urged Trump to “dismantle the administrative state”, reverse policies on climate action, slash restrictions on fossil fuel extraction, scrap state investment in renewable energy, and gut the Environmental Protection Agency.

Many of these policies are being executed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has decimated several departments including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), while several individuals with ties to Project 2025 have roles in the new administration.

The 11 March meeting also featured the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a Christian legal activist group that was responsible in 2022 for helping convince the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the constitutional right to an abortion. 

The Southern Poverty Law Center legal advocacy group has argued that the ADF should be deemed a “hate group because it has supported the idea that being LGBTQ+ should be a crime in the U.S. and abroad.”

Project 2025 proposed limiting reproductive rights, including further limiting access to abortions as well as access to contraceptives.
 
The Heritage Foundation “seeks to steer America towards autocracy under Trump’s rule,” said Martin Schirdewan, a Member of European Parliament (MEP) for Die Linke and the co-chair of The Left group.

“Since his election we have seen that they intend to follow through on those plans to the very end. We now know that the Heritage Foundation and their allies in Europe want to replicate that model here. We must protect our services, rights and liberties from these oligarchs at all costs.”

Speaking at a side event during the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in London on 17 February, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts appeared to hint at the group’s new European focus – calling for closer collaboration between national-conservative politicians across the Western world.

He claimed that when Trump and his vice president JD Vance “say America First, when they say they’re going to revitalise the spirit of America, that’s not at the expense of Europe. It’s not a zero sum game, which is what Brussels wants you to believe.”

Roberts added that the Heritage Foundation would support “our friends from Europe” to “reclaim” their institutions.

He claimed that supranational organisations like the EU, United Nations, and World Health Organisation “rob us of our individual sovereignty”.

“This is all about reclaiming sovereignty, reclaiming the spirit, the sovereignty of each of our nation states,” he said. “And so I can speak for a lot of Americans here and certainly all of us from the Heritage Foundation… We’ve drawn a line in the sand and we’re ready to lead the world again.”

Trump this week announced $8 billion tariffs on EU goods, including a 25 percent tax on steel and aluminium, after claiming that European countries are “ripping off” the U.S. on trade. He has also accused the EU of being “one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the world”.

The Heritage Foundation, MCC Brussels, and ADF were approached for comment.

MCC and Ordo Iuris

Hungary and Poland have faced a number of conflicts with the EU in recent years over their attempts to impose reactionary, anti-democratic policies.

Viktor Orbán’s government has severely restricted political, media, and judicial freedoms in Hungary over recent years, and has declared plans to “occupy” Brussels in order to shape its policies on migration, climate, and gender.

The Hungarian autocrat is also an ally of Trump. Speaking in March 2024, while hosting Orbán at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, Trump said: “There’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orbán. He’s fantastic.”

MCC, which helps to spread Orbán’s ideologies at home and abroad, is funded heavily by fossil fuel finance.

In 2020, Orbán’s administration gave MCC a 10 percent stake in Hungarian oil company MOL, a 10 percent stake in the pharmaceutical firm Gedeon Richter, plus $462 million in cash, and $9 million in property. In 2023, MCC received €50 million in dividends from MOL, a firm that receives 65 percent of its oil from Russia, according to an investigation by German broadcaster ZDF.

The group’s Brussels arm has called on the EU to “ditch the net zero madness” and has helped to convene anti-green groups from across Europe over the past year. It recently stated that one of its key campaigning objectives in 2025 was to help create “a Europe unshackled from environmentalism”, and has called for the introduction of an EU DOGE.

“The European Parliament must take this threat seriously, including by closing lobbying loopholes,” said Nick Aiossa, director at Transparency International EU, “otherwise shady think tanks with anti-democratic agendas will be able to sway policy at will.”

Meanwhile, Poland followed the lead of Hungary under its previous Law and Justice administration. Media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders stated that, “During the eight years of rule by the Law and Justice party, the public media were turned into propaganda tools”.

Before the party lost power in 2023, Human Rights Watch reported that the Law and Justice administration undermined the “rule of law by strengthening its control over the judiciary and smearing journalists and human rights activists critical of the government”.

In keeping with MCC, Ordo Iuris has been advocating for “structural reforms” of the EU for several years. In 2022, the group said it would work closely with MEPs who oppose the “further federalisation” of the EU and want to see the bloc returned to its “Christian roots”.

A spokesperson for Ordo Iuris said that the group “is an independent foundation funded solely by private donors. It has never received public grants or subsidies and has no affiliation with any political party.”

Heritage Foundation’s European Meetings

DeSmog can also reveal that the Heritage Foundation has been holding private meetings with European politicians in recent months.

On 21 February, the group met with Hungarian MEP Ernö Schaller-Baross in Washington D.C. Schaller-Baross is a member of Orbán’s party Fidesz, which is part of the far-right Patriots for Europe group in European Parliament. He currently serves as a commissioner for the office of Viktor Orban, and formerly acted as Hungary’s deputy state secretary for international affairs from 2018 to 2021.

The MEP seems to share many of the ideologies held by the groups gathered by the Heritage Foundation on 11 March.

In an interview in January with the pro-Orbán newspaper Magyar Nemzet, he called for “a viable European alternative to Brussels’s misguided policies.”

“Our aim is to guide the European Union back to the path of common sense and offer effective, real solutions to the continent’s challenges,” he said – criticising the EU’s “economically harmful, extreme green policies”.

On 19 and 20 January, the Heritage Foundation met with Czech MEP Filip Turek, who is also a member of the Patriots for Europe group.

Turek was in Washington D.C. for Trump’s inauguration – one of several populist European politicians invited by the incoming president. Turek was also pictured with Musk during the trip.

Like Musk, Turek has faced allegations over his use of Nazi gestures in the past. During the 2024 EU election campaign, several old photos of Turek were circulated online, including one in which he appeared to give a Nazi salute from a car, and one featuring a candlestick with a swastika. Turek has stated that he is a collector of Nazi artefacts, and also has a knife used by SS soldiers, but denied that he was a Nazi sympathiser – saying his gesture was “dark stupid humour”.

Turek, a former professional racing driver, is a social media influencer who wants to “save” the combustion engine. He is also a climate science denier. The EU’s Green Deal “is one of the biggest scams in history,” Turek said in a debate prior to his election in 2024. “It needs to be repealed, repealed, repealed.”

“Are we in a time of climate crisis?” YouTuber Šimon Žd’ársky asked Turek in an interview in March 2024. “No, we are not,” Filip Turek replied.

“What we see in the European Parliament at the moment, is a love affair between traditional conservatives and the far-right,” said Kenneth Haar from Corporate Europe Observatory.

“They command a majority, and they have already shown to be willing to use it to roll back democracy, climate policies, and environmental protection. They could change the face of the EU decisively in the coming years.”

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