Steve Bannon is out to be a big player in European politics.

But his potential European partners are ambivalent, saying they want to keep the controversial American at arm's length even as they seek to tap his expertise on how to disrupt politics on the Continent. This initial reception signals potential limits to the Bannon push into the Old World — as well as exposing divisions among Europe's various far-right groups that lurk not far beneath the surface.

Donald Trump's former chief strategist last week unveiled plans to ramp up a Brussels-based foundation, named The Movement, to coordinate and advise right-wing populist parties campaigning in next spring's European Parliament election. His plan is to help parties set up a right-wing "supergroup" within the Parliament that could attract as many as a third of the lawmakers after next May’s ballot, he told the Daily Beast.

Although Bannon has only just announced the foundation, The Movement was established in January of last year by Mischaël Modrikamen, a Brussels lawyer and leader of a small right-wing party. Modrikamen told POLITICO that Bannon recently got in touch with him and they realized that "my structure was already there, and that it fit with what Bannon wanted to create.”

Despite Bannon's connections to Europe's leading populists, many sound unsure about letting an outsider play a central role in next year's election, let alone one with his reputation. Some pointed out they are already working on their own pan-European alliances.

"Bannon is American and has no place in a European political party," said Jérôme Rivière, a member of French far-right leader Marine Le Pen's National Rally party who recently met Bannon in London. "We reject any supra-national entity and are not participating in the creation of anything with Bannon."

However, Rivière, his party's international spokesman, said he has talked to Bannon about how he could "provide us with new ideas or share his experience." Rivière said The Movement would be "a good non-partisan tool box" to achieve that. Bannon, who formerly ran Breitbart media, helped lead the successful Trump campaign in 2016 and went on to serve in the White House for seven months.

The 2019 European Parliament election is a "major political opportunity for us to build a majority or at least to have enough MEPs to block business as usual in the EU," Rivière added.

Another prominent Euroskeptic politician, Gerolf Annemans of Belgium's Vlaams Belang party, noted Bannon "knows us all [on the European populist right], and spoke at party events."

"If it becomes an employment vehicle for Farage and Laure Ferrari, we wish [Bannon] the best of luck but want nothing to do with it" — Gerolf Annemans from Belgium's Vlaams Belang party

But Annemans, who is also president of the Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom, a pan-European grouping, expressed concern that Bannon's project could be a way to give jobs to his friends, such as former UKIP leader Nigel Farage and Laure Ferrari, a French politician with close links to Farage.

"If it becomes an employment vehicle for Farage and Laure Ferrari, we wish [Bannon] the best of luck but want nothing to do with it," he said, adding that the project at times appears “poorly organized."

Belgian public records list Ferrari as one of three directors of The Movement.

Soros as role model

Bannon said his ambition is to play a role in Europe in the same way that he believes liberal Hungarian-American financier George Soros does. But Annemans is skeptical about Bannon's financial muscle, saying: "We don’t feel that he, like Soros, is coming in with a big wallet."

Another Bannon contact is Matteo Salvini, leader of the Italy's League party and the country's interior minister. They met before and after March's Italian election. But he looks unlikely to embrace Bannon.

The League, according to a Euroskeptic MEP close to the party who didn't want to be named, is working on “its own political project, own alliances,” building on partnerships with France’s National Rally, Vlaams Belang and Austria's Freedom Party, as well as forging new ties with Alternative for Germany and the Sweden Democrats.

“If Bannon reaches out to us, we will take this rather positively. After all, Bannon is one of the main architects of Trump’s victory" — Prominent Euroskeptic MEP

“If Bannon wants to give us a hand, it’s great, we will need all possible support,” the MEP said. “But there will be no participation in any new structure or movement.”

The Euroskeptic lawmaker also said Bannon’s reputation could be an obstacle to any future alliance. “I’m told that in the U.S. Bannon has irritated Trump and Trump tends to dislike people who collaborate with him [Bannon],” he said.

In France, Bannon has links to the far right going back years. In 2014, he declared that France is “the place to be” with “its young entrepreneurs, women of the family Le Pen.”

Marine Le Pen invited Bannon to a party meeting in March but has been busy building her own alliances since then. In May, she hosted a far-right gathering in Nice at which she spoke of a "Union of European Nations." She was joined there by Geert Wilders of the Dutch Freedom Party, Harald Vilimsky of Austria's Freedom Party and Czech nationalist Tomio Okamura.

How an alliance forged by Bannon would fit into the European Parliament isn't clear. At present, there are two Euroskeptic groupings in the assembly, the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy — home to UKIP and Italy's 5Stars — and the Europe of Nations and Freedom, whose members include the National Rally, the Freedom Party of Austria and the Dutch Party for Freedom.

To form a group in the Parliament requires a minimum of 25 MEPs, including representatives from at least a quarter (seven at present) of the member countries.

On the fringe of the fringe

Bannon was in London last week and held talks with populists from across the Continent.

Parliament officials said his meetings were either with people who need a new job — such as Farage, who will no longer be an MEP when the U.K. leaves the EU — or who have been ostracized by their own party. In the latter group are Filip Dewinter of Vlaams Belang who, according to Annemans, "wasn’t there [in London] representing the party” and Kent Ekeroth of the Sweden Democrats, who has suggested he will move to Hungary to escape his own country's migration policies.

Bannon also met Modrikamen, the Brussels lawyer whose Popular Party holds one seat in Belgium's federal parliament.

Modrikamen's party was part of Farage’s now-defunct pan-European group called the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe, for which Modrikamen did much of the legal advice and paperwork. The group was mired in investigations into fraud and improper payments for much of its existence.

In an interview on Tuesday, Modrikamen said the victory of Trump and the Republicans in the 2016 U.S. elections made him think “that it would be good to unite populist forces” in Europe. He sent Bannon a note setting out his ideas.

The group could unite European populist parties around common policies on national sovereignty, on migration and fighting radical Islam.

Bannon “was then very busy” so he didn’t reply, Modrikamen said. But a few weeks ago he got a phone call from Bannon suggesting a meeting.

“We had lunch ... with Bannon, Farage and other collaborators,” he said. “We realized that our visions totally coincided, that my structure was already there, and that it fit with what Bannon wanted to create.”

The Movement, Modrikamen said, "will not be linked to the European Parliament.”

“Its goal is to unify European populist movements around a series of common ideas and with a private budget,” he said. Modrikamen described Bannon as “an intellectual and organizational war machine” and said he is likely to become The Movement’s chairman, while he would be “its managing partner.”

“Bannon is aware of European specificities, and it’s not The Movement or Bannon who will win the elections,” Modrikamen said. He said the group could unite European populist parties around common policies on national sovereignty, on migration and fighting radical Islam. The Movement could also hold summits of populist forces ahead of European Council meetings, he suggested.

“Bannon and I agreed that we didn’t want any racist or xenophobic forces in there,” he added.

Some Euroskeptic figures gave Bannon's new initiative a warm welcome.

A spokesman for the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy, the group that includes UKIP, said Bannon "certainly seems to offer a different perspective," and "with his experience of American politics he could exert a large impact on the European scene which is currently going through quite a change."

A prominent Euroskeptic MEP who didn't want to be named said that, “At this stage, we have not been approached, we’re not involved, and we don’t really see the contours of Bannon's plan."

However, the MEP said: “If Bannon reaches out to us, we will take this rather positively."

“After all, Bannon is one of the main architects of Trump’s victory," he added.