STRASBOURG — Euroskeptics in the European Parliament have a plan to blow up the assembly's politics in 2019, and radically change the EU in the process.

Emboldened by the success of populist role models in Italy and Austria, leading members of the two Euroskeptic groups in the Parliament have begun work on parallel strategies to expand their influence. The effort will involve an aggressive push in the European election next May, involving a less overtly Euroskeptic pitch to voters, new parliamentary alliances and no mention of Brexit.

But despite backing away from an explicit call to leave the European Union, that does not mean any softening toward Brussels. Far from it. Although the heavy progress of Britain's departure may be turning some European voters off the idea of leaving the club, the reform that leading Euroskeptics have in mind would amount to the wholesale destruction of the EU as currently conceived.

A larger populist presence in the next European parliament is a growing concern in Brussels and other key EU capitals. It could deny the mainstream right and left parties control over the chamber and complicate plans to choose replacements for the biggest EU jobs becoming vacant in 2019 — the presidency of the European Commission, European Council and the European Central Bank. It could stifle French President Emmanuel Macron's ambitions to reform Europe. And if the populists do well and then manage to unite as a single force in Parliament, then they could muster the strength to start to implement their agenda for the EU.

For the populists, 2019 will be a test as well of this motley crew's ability to come together, when they differ on so much. In the wake of Brexit and recent electoral successes at the national level, it's the best opportunity they have had or may ever get to seize hold of the reins at the European level.

'Another Europe'

Nicolas Bay, a member of Marine Le Pen's National Front party from France and co-leader of the Europe of Nations and Freedoms group (ENL) in the Parliament, said that his party would offer a “true alternative.” That would no longer be based exclusively on criticism of the EU though, he added, but on “a real European project aimed at another Europe — a Europe designed differently.” Last weekend, the party voted to rebrand itself as the National Rally — part of an effort to broaden its support and move away from the racial hatred and anti-Semitism associated with the party's founder, Le Pen's father Jean-Marie.

He hopes that next year's election will provide the launch pad to do that.

Currently, of the 751 MEPs in the Parliament, 151 belong to groups openly critical or hostile toward the EU and at least 12 others are unattached. Though the center-right European People's Party (EPP) group is likely to remain the dominant political force in the chamber, populist forces have made strong showings in recent elections and the next European Parliament is likely to reflect that trend.

Germany's far-right AfD, for example, currently has just one MEP, but in national elections last year it got 12.6 percent of the vote. The populist 5Stars Movement and right-wing League in Italy emerged as the largest parties in elections earlier this year and in Austria, the Freedom Party (FPÖ) is part of the governing coalition after similar electoral success.

At the same time, center-left parties in France, Germany and Italy have taken a hammering in national polls and the U.K.'s departure (along with its 73 MEPs) adds another facet to the changed parliamentary complexion that will emerge after the Continent goes to the polls.

There are question marks over whether the Euroskeptics are capable of forming a single coherent parliamentary force.

“It is indisputable that these [Euroskeptic] groups will gain a lot after the elections, and if they all team up to create one party, they would not be far from the first force,” said Charles de Marcilly, who heads the Brussels office of the French think tank, the Robert Schuman Foundation.

For Bay, this political churn offers the chance of new alliances — something he has pursed by touring European capitals in search of potential political friends. “It is not about paring down the alter-European galaxy to our single ENF group,” he said. “The change of dimension of the ENF is not just numerical … It is also a political change of dimension.”

Last month at an event in Nice, National Rally leader Le Pen inaugurated a “Union of European Nations” in the hopes of building ties around the party’s new doctrine and extending its presence in the EU chamber. This ad-hoc alliance includes new members such as the Czech Freedom and Direct Democracy Party (SPD), the Bulgarian “Volya” and the Greek “Nea Dexia” party. The goal, Bay said, is to extend “in numbers of nationalities, MEPs and with governing parties" to have a “considerable weight” in the European Parliament. Bay met recently with the tiny Spanish far-right Vox party, and said he wished to “offer an olive branch” to Finnish and Swedish populist parties.

Brexit, shhhh

Most significantly, several ENF officials said the group is in discussions with Fidesz, the party of Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, about potentially joining forces. Orbán's party currently sits within the mainstream EPP group but has taken a tough line on immigration and passed laws that are seen by the EU as a violation of civil liberties.

Populists across the Continent are pulling back from some of their most strident messages to attract voters. Under its new name, France's National Rally hopes to profit politically from its strategy of ameliorating some of the party' more hard-line political messages, a process that began before last year's presidential election. It no longer advocates Frexit from the EU or leaving the euro currency. In Italy too, the League and 5Star coalition government is not pushing to leave the euro despite both parties campaigning for it in the past.

What divides the different populist groups most is their position on the euro.

Brexit too has not turned out to be the rallying cry some might have hoped. Bay said he doesn’t think “that the choice of the U.K. was detrimental.” But, he said: "we noticed that people express a willingness for a different Europe ... So that’s the card we want to play. We defend renegotiation, not Frexit." Nonetheless, he has previously argued that Britain should be given the "best possible deal" on its departure.

The party's EU reform proposals are viewed by the Brussels establishment as radical — including abolishing the European Commission, which Bay said "decides on everything" and “obeys financial markets' demands." The EU's executive body should be replaced by a small entity like a "general secretariat in charge of norms," which gets involved in policy only on a "project by project" basis, he said.

German-speaking populists, unite

The other prominent Euroskeptic force in the Parliament is the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group, which will loose 19 U.K. Independence Party MEPs after Brexit. Jörg Meuthen, the only MEP from Germany's AfD, is a member of that group but given its uncertain future, he says he intends to use his current tenure to “find allies and establish a new group" for 2019. “I expect that we will have 15 or a little more new AfD members [after the 2019 election],” he said, adding that he is “in close talks” with the Austrian FPÖ about an alliance (The FPÖ is currently a member of Bay's ENL.)

The AfD has opposition to the EU's migration and refugee policies in common with other Euroskeptic parties, but the party supports a free-market Europe and wants to exit the euro. “The National Front is too much of a left party,” Meuthen said, referring to party just rechristened as National Rally.

More broadly though, he wants Germany to remain within a reformed EU. "It's the question of revolution or reforming, and my position is to try to make a better and smaller European Union but not to kill it," he said. "We must be clear that the EU, if you do it right, has a lot of advantages for its members."

For all the talk of increased numbers and new alliances though, there are question marks over whether the Euroskeptics are capable of forming a single coherent parliamentary force. As well as policy differences, the AfD considers the National Rally an anti-Semitic group and they have refused to work together in the past.

There is no love lost between the two parties. “They consider us like racist and anti-Semites," said Bernard Monod, another member of the National Rally. "But we are patriots before anything else.”

Most fundamentally, De Marcilly said what divides the different populist groups, including the AfD and the National Rally, is their vision of the euro. Forging a common position on that and other issues could prove key.

"They will have to make concrete proposals, while today their DNA is criticism," he said. “Are they going to be Euroskeptic or Europhobic?”