The New American magazine has been invited to cover the Make Europe Great Again (MEGA) conference, which will take place in Bucharest, Romania, on April 27-28.
Organized by the Institute of Conservative Political Studies “Mihai Eminescu” and the conservative party Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), the event aims to address the challenges faced by Europe and the entire world. According to the organizers, these challenges represent an existential threat posed by the “neo-Marxist globalist left bent on disfiguring society and corrupting people’s minds and souls.” The Romanian conservatives believe that the only safeguard against this “unprecedented madness” is “conservatives and patriots.”
The European Union (EU) has been at the forefront of enacting socialist policies over the past couple of decades. One such policy concerns the destruction of borders and the facilitation of mass migration from Africa and the Middle East. While specific approaches vary from one country to another, broadly speaking, the bloc has put in place liberal immigration rules that have led to such grave consequences as an increased strain on local economies, a spike in crime, and the degradation of European cultural identity. In recent years, several countries, including Hungary, Italy, Poland, Austria, Denmark, Greece, Switzerland, Norway, and the Baltic states, have taken steps to address security and cultural concerns by strengthening immigration measures. These measures range from enacting restrictions on the entry of refugees and migrants to increasing border controls, erecting barriers along their borders, imposing stricter eligibility criteria for obtaining residence permits, criminalizing illegal border crossings, and increasing deportations. Immigration, which remains one of the thorniest issues in the European political debate, will be a central topic of discussion at the event.
Another topic of interest is the protection and strengthening of traditional family values. Much like major conservative parties, AUR views the traditional family as “the basic cell of any viable society” and “opposes gender ideology, particularly the introduction of gender-ideology-based sexual education in schools, publicly funded abortion, legal abortion-on-demand, … homosexual marriage, euthanasia, medically assisted suicide, publicly funded transsexual surgery, and other Freudo-Marxism-inspired ‘innovations’ meant to fluidize, relativize, and eventually abolish the traditional moral paradigm and the natural, biological realities.” This principled stance was reiterated by the party’s leader, George Simion, in a February interview with The New American at CPAC.
Notably, the conservative governments of Hungary, Poland, and the Balkan states have pushed back against the EU and restricted or banned LGBT-related “educational” materials from public schools and other public forums, such as television. Hungary has enacted a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, restricted adoptions by same-sex couples, and banned legal recognition of gender identity for “transgender” individuals.
Finally, the participants will examine the state of the European economy, which has been seriously undermined by stringent climate change regulations. Currently, the EU is committed to achieving “climate neutrality” by 2050, which means completely eliminating greenhouse gas emissions. Many countries and industry groups within the union have protested against and opposed various regulations, such as renewable-energy projects and emissions restrictions, voicing well-warranted skepticism over “climate science,” withdrawing from international agreements, and legally challenging climate policies. In a recent interview with The New American, Rob Roos, the member of the European Parliament (MEP) representing the Netherlands and one of the featured speakers at the event, described the severe economic consequences of “climate communism,” which, he said, aimed at establishing a China-like system of societal control.
Besides these pressing matters, the conference will seek to discuss ways of reclaiming “economic sovereignty” from Brussels via “free market, tax reform, private property, and national assets,” as well as the Three Seas Initiative.
The speakers and participants are represented by politicians, legislators, journalists, academics, and filmmakers from Europe and the Americas.
Interviews from the event will be posted at thenewamerican.com and on X (Twitter).
