“The Future of European Nations,” a conference of European far-right and neo-fascist organizations, was held in Belgrade on May 31. The Insider found that some of the speakers were members of groups that had previously appeared at a congress in St. Petersburg organized by entities linked to Russian far-right billionaire Konstantin Malofeev. That congress led to the creation of the International League of Anti-Globalists “Paladins,” a network of neo-Nazi, neo-fascist, and far-right organizations from several countries.
The Belgrade conference, put together by Serbian pro-Russian nationalist Misha Vacić, who is under U.S. sanctions, was presented as a meeting of the “Alliance for Peace and Freedom,” formed in 2015 by far-right parties from multiple European countries, including the UK, Germany, and Spain. It was held at the media center of the Serbian Journalists’ Association in central Belgrade.
The meeting featured anti-European, pro-Russian, anti-migrant, anti-LGBTQ, and racist remarks. Its participants also rejected the independence of Kosovo and accused the European Union, the United States, and NATO of wrongdoing.
Vacić, who describes himself as the leader of the nonparliamentary Serbian Right party, has been on the U.S. Treasury Department’s sanctions list since 2023 for “malign activity” carried out on Russia’s behalf. The Treasury Department said that in September 2022 Vacić had served as an observer of Russia’s “sham referenda” preceding the illegal annexation of Ukraine’s occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhizhia regions. In interviews and at news conferences, Vacić claimed he had served as an international observer at Vladimir Putin’s invitation and spoke in favor of Russia annexing those territories.
Among the speakers at Vacić’s conference was Roberto Fiore, chairman of the Alliance for Peace and Freedom and the leader of the Italian neo-fascist party Forza Nuova. The party’s Secretary-General, Gloria Callarelli, was also listed among the official participants. Forza Nuova took part in Malofeev’s St. Petersburg congress last fall.
Forza Nuova is a neo-fascist party founded by Roberto Fiore and Massimo Morsello in 1997. It promotes Catholic traditionalism, Euroskepticism, and “national reconstruction” while opposing migration, abortion, and LGBT rights. After a terrorist bomb at the Bologna railway station killed 85 people in 1980, Fiore and Morsello decamped to London, returning to Italy only in the late 1990s.
Forza Nuova has never had serious parliamentary representation. Instead, it is known for conducting street actions and harboring ties to far-right movements across Europe. In 2021, its activists took part in the storming of the office of Italy’s largest trade union. In 2022, they were involved in a funeral procession in Rome featuring a Nazi flag. After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the party supported Moscow, with Forza Nuova members even taking part in combat on Russia’s side.
Another speaker at the May 31 conference was Gonzalo Martín, vice president of the Spanish neo-Nazi party Democracia Nacional, which also took part in Malofeev’s St. Petersburg congress. The Insider established from photographs that Martín himself was also present at that congress.
Ioannis Zografos of the Greek “patriotic movement K-21” likewise spoke at the Belgrade conference. K-21 was formed after the collapse of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, once the third-largest party in Greece. In October 2020, Golden Dawn was declared by a Greek court to be a criminal organization, and nearly 70 party members were convicted of crimes including the 2013 killing of Greek musician and anti-fascist activist Pavlos Fyssas, as well as attacks on migrants and political opponents.
In addition to Vacić, one of the Serbian organizers listed in connection with the conference was Goran Davidović, leader of the banned neo-Nazi organization National Alignment (known by the nickname “Führer”). The group was banned by Serbia’s Constitutional Court in 2011 for inciting religious and national hatred and intolerance. In the official list of speakers, Davidović was described as a historian and founder of the Party of Serbian Nationalists.
In Serbia, Davidović was sentenced to one year in prison for attacking participants in an anti-fascist debate at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad in 2005. In 2007, he was again charged with inciting national, religious, and racial hatred — this time over an attack on participants in an anti-fascist march in Novi Sad. Davidović was convicted in absentia but escaped jail by hiding out in Italy. He returned to Serbia in 2019 after the Belgrade Court of Appeals overturned the verdict.
Another speaker in Belgrade was Pavle Bihali, a representative of the Levijatan and Fortis movements and one of the founders of the Party of Serbian Nationalists.
