With lofty rhetoric and classic populist messaging, Italy’s Matteo Salvini launched what he called “a vision of Europe for the next 50 years” in Milan on Monday, in an attempt to bring the far right from across Europe into an alliance.

Italy’s deputy prime minister and leader of the nationalist League party shared a stage with politicians from three other nationalist parties in the conference hall of a luxury Milan hotel, pledging to create a new bloc that would shake up the European parliament after elections in May.

“The European dream is being threatened by the bureaucrats and bankers governing Europe. They have been governing Europe for too long; it should really be a government of people,” Salvini told a packed hall.

Monday’s event was called “Towards a common sense Europe: peoples rise up” and had been billed as the launch of a new European coalition with Salvini as its figurehead. In the end, Salvini appeared alongside just two other MEPs, Jörg Meuthen, of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), and Anders Vistisen, of the Danish People’s party, as well as Olli Kotro, a candidate for the Finnish nationalist Finns party at the upcoming election.

There is no doubt that the far right is on the rise across Europe. Rightwing populists are in power in Hungary and Poland, while Salvini has become Italy’s most powerful politician and his rightwing coalition has been making big gains in domestic elections. Salvini’s League, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France and the Freedom party in Austria are all expected to do well at the elections, boosting the number of far-right populist MEPs.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Olli Kotro, Jörg Meuthen and Salvini at Monday’s meeting. Photograph: Daniel Dal Zennaro/EPA

The big question is whether all these parties can put aside differences on issues such as EU budget distribution and relations with Russia, and unite into a bloc that could have a real influence on the European parliament. An attempt by Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon to create a populist super-alliance across Europe has already failed, owing to a combination of conflicting priorities and legal issues over funding.

A broader coalition is still possible, but the paucity of the guest list in Milan showed there are still differences among Europe’s far right. Salvini has created a strong alliance with Le Pen’s National Rally and was in Paris last Friday cementing the friendship. However, his visit to Warsaw in January to court the chairman of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, Jarosław Kaczyński, has not yet borne fruit. While the Poles share many of Salvini’s views on migration and so-called “European culture”, they are hawkish on Russia, while Salvini is an admirer of Vladimir Putin. There are also differences on economic policies.

Vistisen conceded there were challenges in bringing together Europe’s nationalists, particularly due to divergent views over Russia, and he said part of the reason the manifesto had been left vague was so as “not to exclude anyone who potentially wants to be with us”.

He said he hoped the launch in Milan would persuade Le Pen and Poland’s PiS to sign up to the new bloc. “It’s very clear that the Poles and the French have the most difficulty working together, so this is a way to persuade them to overlook those differences. The two big parties – the Germans and the Italians – are here together. If you are sitting in Warsaw or Paris, you’re not very comfortable with this format,” he told the Guardian.

Vistisen said the manifesto of the new group would include three main points: a devolution of power from Brussels to member states; implementation of an “Australian model” of migration, stopping migrants at the EU’s external borders; and “protection for Europe’s cultural identity”.

“We need to build a fortress in Europe,” Meuthen said. Opinion polls suggest AfD is likely to increase its count of MEPs from the seven it won at the previous elections. “We welcome all political parties – conservatives, patriots, people who really live what they talk. There are many such political parties,” he said.

Salvini, who is using his role as the informal leader of Europe’s far right to appeal to his domestic voters and boost his popularity inside Italy, promised a huge rally in Milan’s Piazza del Duomo on 18 May, a week before the elections, though he was vague on who would attend.

More support could come after the elections from Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán. He has called Salvini a “hero” for championing Italy’s tough anti-migration stance, but for now has preferred to keep his Fidesz party inside the European People’s party (EPP), the centre-right grouping in the European parliament.

The EPP suspended Fidesz’s membership last month after a long debate over concerns about rule of law in Hungary, ignoring some of the more liberal parties in the grouping who had called for expulsion. Orbán has suggested he may jump before he is pushed after the elections, and could join a coalition of nationalists.

“At the end of May, Europe will choose a future for itself … We will decide whether Europe will continue to belong to Europeans or be given over to masses of people from different cultures and different civilisations,” Orbán said in a speech in Budapest on Friday.

The EPP was turning “towards liberal European empire-building and a Europe of immigrants”, Orbán said. “If this is the direction it takes, you can rest assured that we shall not follow.”

In the past, European elections have tended to be fought on largely domestic issues, with little voter enthusiasm. This time, with a European agenda dominated by Brexit, migration debates and the rise of populist parties, all sides have suggested the elections could be the most important for many years.

Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of the Alde group of liberals in the European parliament, called the vote “a battle for Europe’s soul” and a challenge to the vision of an open, tolerant Europe.

The nationalists would agree: “Our target is to win and change the rules of Europe,” said Salvini.