A delegation of European conservative leaders agree that President Trump’s triumphant return to the White House after four years in political exile has helped inspire a populist, MAGA-style resurgence across their own respective countries.

Members of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party (ECR), are part of a center-right political group of members in the European Parliament, launched in 2009.

A fifteen-member delegation of the ECR traveled to Washington last week to attend the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, to network with their American conservative counterparts to exchange ideas and political strategies.

George Simion, leader of Romania’s nationalist party Alliance for the Union of Romanians, who was elected last month to be the ECR’s vice president, told The Washington Times, “We want to take part of this conservative revolution that is going on in all corners of the free world.”

Their attendance came just before provisional results confirmed that mainstream conservatives led by Friedrich Merz had won Germany’s national election. At the same time, Alternative for Germany almost doubled its support, the strongest showing for a conservative party since World War II.

Mr. Simion said he was impressed by some of the marquee speakers at CPAC, including tech billionaire and Department of Government Efficiency leader Elon Musk.

“I just listened to Elon Musk. He inspired us. He tweeted from ’MAGA to MEGA,’ so this is a source of inspiration about organizing conservative ideas, about putting the focus where it should be, on our values, on our identity,” Mr. Simion said, referencing how European conservatives are adopting Mr. Trump’s signature MAGA to “Make Europe Great Again.”

“I see that MAGA culture was very important in President Trump winning the election, and I see people that understand that freedom isn’t won forever,” Mr. Simion said. “You must fight for it each day. And I see the representatives that are in constant dialogue.”

ECR’s Secretary General Antonio Giordano, deputy of the Brothers of Italy Party, led by President Giorgia Meloni, said the most important thing about Mr. Trump is the “confirmation that conservative values can always win again.”

“He was resilient. He faced a very difficult period between the two [elections], but in any case, he is very strong, and he affirms his anti-woke values,” Mr. Giordano said.

“In general, every conservative thinks to make his nation great again. And this is something that is very important for our conservatives,” he said.

At the conference, Mr. Trump met with Poland’s conservative president, Andrzej Duda.

Vice President J.D. Vance visited Europe earlier this month, where his remarks challenging Europe’s leaders on free speech and immigration received a cold reception in Munich at a security conference. But ECR members lauded Mr. Vance for his comments.

Robert Roos, a former Dutch politician who served in the European Parliament, told The Times, “What Vance stated was very important.”

“If the European bureaucrats are afraid of their own voters, there’s nothing America can do for you. And he is right,” Mr. Roos said. “We have to clean up our own mess, and then we can cooperate with the United States again. I’m sure that the United States is absolutely not willing to work with the EU bureaucracy, the unelected commission.”

Stephen Bartulica, who has served as a member of the Croatian Parliament since 2020 and represents his country in the European Parliament, said he “welcomed” Mr. Vance’s speech and believed it was “completely justified.”

“European elites, frankly, do not believe in freedom of speech. They want to control speech, they want to regulate speech, and they see themselves more as masters than servants,” he said. “They don’t have confidence in the judgment of ordinary people to decide for themselves what is right and wrong.”

According to Mr. Bartulica, the ECR will be fighting the Digital Service Act (DSA), legislation that enables mass censorship throughout Europe.

It is not the first time European conservative leaders adopted MEGA as a rallying cry.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary told fellow conservative leaders, “Trump’s tornado has changed the world in just a couple of weeks,” during a summit in Madrid whose slogan was “Make Europe Great Again.” Among the attendees were Marine Le Pen of France, the Netherland’s Geert Wilders and Italy’s Matteo Salvini.

“Yesterday we were the heretics,” Mr. Orban said. “Now we are the mainstream.”

• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.