TEAM BEHIND MCC BRUSSELS LAUNCHES FREEDOM AND SOVEREIGNTY INITIATIVE EUROPE

BRUSSELS, September 23rd 2026 - The team behind MCC Brussels today announces the creation of Freedom and Sovereignty Initiative Europe (FSI Europe), a fully independent think tank that will draw on the experience of the key members of MCC Brussels, offering an intellectually ambitious agenda of research, media and public engagement across Europe.

Launching today (and with an event on October 14th), the Freedom and Sovereignty Initiative Europe brings together the team responsible for some of the most influential conservative reports, conferences, documentaries and media interventions to emerge from Brussels in recent years.

The program and personnel behind the initiative can be found here on the website- fsieurope.org.

The new organisation is already developing its own funding base and partnerships, announcing a plan to develop a major intervention on the EU’s attempt to control and influence upcoming elections in France, Germany, Poland, Spain and elsewhere.

Donations to support the initiative can be made here: https://fsieurope.org/donate

The mission of the new organisation is clear: to challenge the centralisation of political power in Europe, defend national sovereignty and democratic accountability, and provide a platform for arguments and perspectives too often excluded from mainstream European debate.

Freedom and Sovereignty Initiative Europe will publish major research and lead campaigns on some of the defining questions facing the continent, including:

• Democracy, election control and national sovereignty
• Free speech and censorship
• Immigration and social fragmentation
• Culture, gender, and family
• Energy, farming and environmentalism
• Economy, regulation and innovation
• Defence, competitiveness and strategic autonomy

Alongside its research, the organisation plans an ambitious digital media operation, producing hard-hitting videos, investigative exposés, podcasts and social media campaigns that develop a robust intellectual alternative for audiences across Europe.

The organisation is actively fundraising to support its research and media programme.

Professor Frank Furedi, President of FSI Europe, said:

“Europe is entering a pivotal moment. Hundreds of millions of people across Europe are demanding an alternative. Yet despite enormous successes, challenger movements have not yet developed a comprehensive intellectual and political alternative. Our job is to contribute to that endeavour.

As patriotic forces gain momentum, the legacy establishment parties of Europe feel threatened as never before. They will seek to cling to power through escalating attempts at democratic and narrative control. We will relentlessly expose these attempts to stand in the way of democratic change.”

John O’Brien, Director of Communications, said:

“We have repeatedly witnessed, sometimes first-hand, how Brussels attempts a brutal crackdown on dissent. The EU exercises enormous power over speech, funds an extraordinary network of NGOs to monopolise the voice of civil society, and supports radical activists to intimidate opponents in the street. We exist to demonstrate that this campaign will not succeed. People cannot be silenced.”

Building on an extraordinary record

In just four years, MCC Brussels established itself as the leading influential conservative think tank at the heart of European political debate.

The team behind MCC Brussels helped expose the close relationship between European institutions and politically aligned NGOs, challenged policies affecting Europe’s farming communities, championed nuclear power before its return to the political mainstream, and questioned prevailing assumptions about multiculturalism and European integration.

Its conferences brought together leading international academics, journalists, policymakers and political figures, while its documentaries and digital campaigns reached millions of viewers across Europe and beyond.

MCC Brussels also repeatedly found itself at the centre of political controversy. Attempts by Brussels mayors, Antifa activists and the Brussels EU establishment to prevent or disrupt its events - most notably the attempted shutdown of the National Conservatism Conference in Brussels in 2024 - brought international attention to questions of free speech in the capital of the European Union.

MCC Brussels was ultimately forced to close as a result of a campaign by the Hungarian government of Péter Magyar and the European Commission against Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), the Hungarian educational institution that funded MCC Brussels.

Change is in the air.

But, fuelled by their experiences, many of the key figures of MCC Brussels have embarked on a new venture. Freedom and Sovereignty Initiative Europe will draw on this experience and develop an ambitious counterweight to the tired policies of the European Commission.

Many arguments dismissed as controversial only a few years ago are now increasingly at the centre of European political debate.

Freedom and Sovereignty Initiative Europe intends to accelerate that process. The fight for a free, sovereign and democratic Europe is only just beginning.

About Freedom and Sovereignty Initiative Europe (FSI Europe)

Freedom and Sovereignty Initiative Europe is an independent Brussels-based think tank led by Professor Frank Furedi. FSI Europe exists to make the case for a Europe of sovereign, secure and dynamic nation states and to support the patriotic movement with the ideas, arguments and reach it needs to win.

It produces research, commentary and media examining the major political, cultural and economic challenges facing Europe, with a particular focus on national sovereignty, democratic accountability, freedom of expression and opposition to the centralisation of political power.