In June 2025, EL PAÍS English reported on The Great Reset, a provocative document crafted by the Polish Ordo Iuris Institute and Hungary's Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), with backing from Spain's far-Right Vox party and other populist forces. This detailed roadmap seeks to either dismantle the European Union (EU) entirely or replace it with a stripped-down version that prioritises national sovereignty over collective governance. Far from the vague anti-EU rhetoric typical of far-Right movements, The Great Reset offers a meticulously planned assault on the EU's institutions, rooted in a nostalgic vision of a "strong, prosperous, and Christian" Europe. Here I examine the document's proposals, their implications for European integration, and the broader challenge they pose to the EU's democratic and cooperative framework, from an anti-globalist position.
The far-Right's approach to the EU has evolved significantly since Brexit, as noted by political scientist Anna López in The Far Right in Europe (Tirant, 2025). Where once "exiters" dominated, advocating for national withdrawal from the EU, far-Right parties now recognise the economic and electoral benefits of remaining within the bloc. Membership provides resources, visibility, and a platform to "dispute the idea of Europe politically and symbolically." This strategic pivot is evident in Vox's support for The Great Reset, marking a bold step for Spain's third-largest party. Rather than leaving the EU, far-Right groups aim to reshape it from within, replacing its current structure with one that amplifies national power and rejects progressive values.
The Great Reset capitalises on this shift, offering two scenarios: "Back to the Roots," which seeks to revert the EU to a minimalist 1957-style European Economic Community, and "A New Beginning," which envisions a looser, treaty-based alliance. Both options reject the EU's supranational authority, framing it as a bureaucratic monster that stifles national sovereignty and imposes a progressive agenda. The document's clarity and detail set it apart from typical far-Right rhetoric, which often avoids specifics to maintain broad appeal. By providing a concrete plan, The Great Reset signals the far-Right's growing ambition to institutionalise its vision across Europe.
The document's authors, Ordo Iuris and MCC, are central to the far-Right's transnational project. Ordo Iuris, a Polish think tank, has a history of shaping ultranationalist policies under Poland's Law and Justice government, including restrictive abortion laws and "LGBTQ+ ideology-free zones." Registered as an EU lobbyist, it maintains ties with far-Right parties across Europe, including France's National Rally and Italy's far-Right factions, and has been active in Spain since at least 2022. Its involvement in anti-abortion summits, such as the one hosted by the Political Values Network in Spain's Senate in December 2024, underscores its influence in promoting conservative social agendas.
MCC, backed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's regime, serves as a training ground for "illiberal nationalist" elites. Its Center for European Studies, led by Spaniard Rodrigo Ballester, collaborates with institutions like Spain's CEU, linked to the Catholic Association of Propagandists. MCC's model, which Vox seeks to replicate through its ISSEP centre, emphasises cultural and intellectual dominance to sustain far-Right governance. Together, Ordo Iuris and MCC represent a coordinated effort to build a "transnational cultural, educational, and strategic project," as López describes, challenging the EU's liberal democratic foundations.
The Great Reset outlines two radical scenarios to overhaul the EU, both prioritising national sovereignty over integration.
Option A: Back to the Roots
The "Back to the Roots" scenario seeks to revert the EU to a pre-integration model, akin to the 1957 Treaty of Rome. Key proposals include:
Weakening EU Institutions: The European Commission would become a "general secretariat" under strict national control, stripping it of its ability to challenge authoritarian policies, as it did against Poland and Hungary. The European Parliament would transform into a mixed assembly of elected and government-nominated members with only advisory powers. The Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) would be limited to dispute resolution, unable to interpret treaties or override national rulings.
Empowering National Governments: The European Council, representing national leaders, would become the "ultimate authority," capable of overturning CJEU decisions. This aligns with the far-Right's view that nothing should constrain national governments.
À La Carte Integration: States could opt out of policies conflicting with their priorities, such as immigration or renewable energy, while retaining benefits like free movement of workers. Areas like "family, public order, moral order, and education" would be untouchable by EU influence, allowing governments to pursue anti-abortion or anti-LGBTQ+ agendas without interference.
Expanding Unanimity: Decision-making would rely more on unanimous agreement, slowing or blocking collective action, in contrast to the EU's push for streamlined processes.
Renaming the EU: The EU would become the "European Community of Nations," signalling a return to a looser, state-centric framework.
This scenario effectively dismantles the EU's supranational structure, reducing it to a cooperative body with minimal authority.
Option B: A New Beginning
The "A New Beginning" scenario is less detailed but more radical, proposing a new treaty to replace the EU with a flexible alliance. States would negotiate their participation in cooperation projects, deciding "when, how, and to what extent" they engage. This model abandons the EU's regulatory framework, requiring a "transition plan" to dissolve existing structures. While presented as innovative, it risks creating a fragmented Europe with no cohesive policy framework, undermining collective responses to global challenges like security.
Implications for European Unity
The Great Reset's proposals attack the EU's core principles of globalised control and Leftist policies. By prioritising national control, the document would enable nationalist regimes to act without EU oversight, as seen in Poland's judicial reforms or Hungary's media crackdowns, returning decision-making power to nations, not a supernational entity as at present. The document's emphasis on "family, moral order, and education" as untouchable domains, aligns with the far-Right's cultural agenda, promoting Christian nationalism and traditionalism, which is a mighty fine thing too. This would legitimise policies, such as Poland's "LGBTQ+ ideology-free zones," The far-Right's nostalgic vision of a "strong, prosperous, and Christian" Europe, will be a direct change to Great Replacement immigration and multiculturalism.
The Great Reset also challenges mainstream European parties, which have struggled to counter far-Right narratives. As López notes, the far-Right's shift from exit to reform allows it to exploit EU membership while attacking its institutions. This dual strategy, leveraging EU resources while advocating its destruction, puts pro-EU forces on the defensive. The document's support from Vox, a major Spanish party, signals the far-Right's growing mainstream influence, forcing moderates to address issues like immigration and bureaucracy.
The far-Right's collaboration with U.S. conservative groups, such as the Heritage Foundation, which supports The Great Reset and Project 2025, adds a transatlantic dimension. This alignment suggests a global push for nationalist, anti-progressive policies, amplifying the document's impact. Posts on X from Ordo Iuris and MCC highlight the enthusiasm for The Great Reset among far-Right networks, with nearly 100 MEPs attending its Brussels launch in June 2025, indicating significant political traction.
The Great Reset is a bold and dangerous blueprint for dismantling the EU, crafted by Ordo Iuris and MCC with support from Vox and other far-Right actors. Its detailed proposals to weaken EU institutions, prioritise national sovereignty, and shield cultural policies from oversight offer a blueprint for escaping the tyranny of present EU globalism. It shows that two can play the great reset game.
"Option A: Dismantle the European Union. Option B: Shut it down and replace it with a mini version. Either way, say goodbye to the current EU. Both "scenarios" are described in The Great Reset, a document penned by the Ordo Iuris Institute of Poland and the Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) of Hungary, backed by Spain's far-right Vox and other parties of a similar ilk. Usually couched in vague rhetoric against "Brussels bureaucrats," Vox's support for the report represents a dramatic step forward for Spain's third-largest political party. The Great Reset, which the two think tanks are promoting as a roadmap for the far right on a European scale, is far from a nationalist rant or a vague declaration of intent. It is an orderly and detailed plan to reduce the current EU to ashes.
Among the effects of Brexit, there is one unexpected one. "The exiters [supporters of leaving the EU] have practically disappeared," explains Anna López, a doctor in political science and author of the essay The Far Right in Europe (Tirant, 2025). The extremists, López analyzes, have internalized the advantages of being inside the EU for two reasons: one, economic, because it guarantees "resources, visibility, and financing"; the other, electoral, because "disputing the idea of Europe politically and symbolically" is preferable to fighting to leave it. So the parties in this group, the researcher adds, have opted to shelve the exit rhetoric and replace it with appeals to nostalgia for an "idealized" Europe that could have been "strong, prosperous, and Christian" but has been ruined — the far right maintains — by the onslaught of a bureaucracy taken over by progressives and out-of-control Muslim immigration.
Since the rhetoric works, details are rarely added. In politics, details can scare those who agree with the general idea. The Great Reset, however, is an exception to the rule of vagueness. Who are these think tanks who have decided to roll up their sleeves to move from grand proclamations to the small print? They are two Central European organizations. The Polish one is Ordo Iuris, the shadowy promoter of the "normative architecture" of the previous government of the ultranationalists of Law and Justice, including the "intellectual authorship" of its restrictive abortion law, the "criminalization of sexual education," and the "LGBTQ+ ideology-free zones," explains anthropologist Nuria Alabao, author of Gender Wars.
Registered as a lobbyist with the EU institutions, Ordo Iuris maintains contact with extremist parties both in Poland — where it also works with the even more right-wing Confederation — and in France, Italy, and other EU countries. Its interest in Spain, where it has been active and in contact with Vox since at least 2022, is explicit. Ordo Iuris was also one of the sponsors of the anti-abortion summit held in the Senate last December under the umbrella of the Political Values Network, an international group with strong Spanish roots, particularly in the figure of former Spanish Minister of the Interior Jaime Mayor Oreja.
The Mathias Corvinus Collegium is, explains Anna López, a factory of "political and intellectual elites aligned with illiberal nationalism" born to feed Viktor Orbán's regime. This is a model that Vox in Spain seeks to emulate with its support for the ISSEP center for training and dissemination of ideas. Like Ordo Iuris, the MCC is interested in Spain, where it has collaborated with the CEU, the educational arm of the Catholic Association of Propagandists. The director of the MCC's Center for European Studies is the Spaniard Rodrigo Ballester, a former EU official and one of the authors of The Great Reset. The president of the MCC is Balázs Orbán, chief of staff to the Hungarian prime minister.
Dismantle or refound
Both Ordo Iuris and the MCC exemplify the European far-right's determination to "consolidate a transnational cultural, educational, and strategic project," notes Anna López. This is the foundation of The Great Reset, which is based on the premise that the European project has abandoned its initial ambition of being a mere zone of "free trade" and "peaceful coexistence" and has become a bureaucratized monster that castrates national sovereignty and imposes a progressive creed.
Ordo Iuris and the MCC offer two alternatives. The most detailed one is presented under the name of "Back to the Roots" and would bring the EU — as the report explains — closer to its embryonic model of 1957, when Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands signed the Treaty of Rome, the origin of the European Economic Community. The first change would be to truncate the European institutions. The European Commission would be transformed into a "general secretariat" under strict state control. This idea is in line with the one put forward more than five years ago by Marine Le Pen's National Rally: reducing it to "an administrative secretariat without a decision-making function." It would mark the end of the Commission's capacity to exert pressure in the face of what it considered the authoritarian tendencies of Law and Justice in Poland and Fidesz in Hungary.
The European Parliament would be transformed into a mixed assembly, composed of members elected through European elections and others nominated by national governments, with advisory powers. The functions of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) would be restricted to "dispute resolution," leaving it outside its scope to interpret treaties or reverse national judicial decisions.
The entire design is consistent with a pervasive idea: that nothing should restrict national governments, which would retain all power. The European Council, as "the voice of national leaders," would be the "ultimate authority" and could even push through new legislation to overturn CJEU rulings.
The second change would end the current integration model, replacing it with an "à la carte" model in which each state would decide which areas it wishes to remain in, and those which it does not. For example, immigration and renewables, no; free movement of workers, yes. Each state could "exempt itself from policies that conflict with its priorities." What can be inferred from this? If a government is pro-abortion and wants to eradicate the LGBTQ+ "influence" from its classrooms, the EU could do nothing to oppose it. The report even identifies four untouchable areas: "Family, public order, moral order, and education." Above all, the EU must have "no direct or indirect impact," the document states.
Just as the EU is debating how to streamline decision-making to compete in a fast-paced world, Option A of the report advocates "strengthening and expanding" the "unanimity" rule. This is the third change: fewer qualified majorities and more need for everyone to act as one to take any action. The fourth and final reform to get "Back to the Roots" would be to change the name of the EU to the "European Community of Nations."
All of the above pertains to the first option outlined in the document. The second is more "out-of-the-box," according to the report. It is what its authors call "A New Beginning," which would consist of "A new Union treaty" that transcends the "mid-20th century paradigm of interventionism and management via regulatory measures." Each state would decide when, how, and to what extent its participation in each cooperation project would be achieved. It would be necessary to "negotiate the detailed structure of the new Union" and a "transition plan," the document states.