Heritage Foundation Hosts Closed-Door Washington Workshop With Hungary's MCC and Poland's Ordo Iuris on Dismantling the European Commission and European Court of Justice

Opening

On March 11, 2025, the Heritage Foundation hosted a closed-door workshop in Washington, DC at which Hungary’s Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) and Poland’s Ordo Iuris presented a paper, “The Great Reset: Restoring Member State Sovereignty in the 21st Century,” proposing to dismantle the European Commission and the European Court of Justice. Alliance Defending Freedom also participated. Reported by VSquare and DeSmog (both 2025-03-14, tier 2).

What Happened / Key Facts

The workshop brought Project 2025’s principal author-organization (Heritage) together with the two flagship illiberal legal institutes of Hungary and Poland to discuss restructuring the EU’s supranational institutions — with the European Court of Justice, the EU’s apex judicial body, named as a target. The shared premise was “member state sovereignty” against Brussels’ rule-of-law enforcement, the same frame deployed at the Danube Institute’s May 2024 Budapest conference. MCC is the Fidesz-funded Hungarian education-and-influence apparatus; Ordo Iuris is the Polish ultraconservative legal institute whose co-founder Aleksander Stępkowski was installed on Poland’s Supreme Court under PiS.

This is the most explicit confirmed instance of a US legal-conservative convening institution coordinating with foreign illiberal legal actors around a supranational judiciary, rather than only domestic courts.

Why This Event Matters

Where the domestic court-rigging story targets US federal courts, this event documents the same network turning to the European Court of Justice — evidence that the “rule of law as lawfare” project is transnational and aimed at supranational judicial review. It is an institutional (Heritage-convened), not merely rhetorical, link, and it post-dates the formal Heritage-Danube partnership, showing escalation.

Broader Context

The workshop sits downstream of Heritage president Kevin Roberts’s 2023 partnership with Budapest’s Danube Institute and of Heritage’s broader cultivation of Hungary as a “model.” No Federalist Society or Leonard Leo participation is confirmed; the convening actor is Heritage. See the consolidated network map for confirmed links and verified absences.

Research Gaps

• Full attendee list and whether any sitting US officials participated.
• The full text of the “Great Reset” paper and any follow-on actions.

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