Leaders of right-wing nationalist parties from four EU member states have announced plans to create a European "patriotic" party that would protect the continent against immigration, "Islamization" and globalization.
The heads of Austria's Freedom Party, France's Nationalist Front, the Bulgarian Attaca party and Belgium's Vlaams Belang on Friday, Jan. 25, told journalists in Vienna that they had agreed to set up a new party in order to defend Europe from numerous challenges that it faces today.
"We say: patriots of all the countries of Europe, unite," Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache said at the news conference, also attended by French right-winger Jean-Marie le Pen, among others. "Because only together will we solve our problems."
Warning about the dangers that immigration and "Islamization" pose for Europe, the right-wing leaders said that that the new party would be based on European Christian traditions across the continent -- including non-EU members such as Serbia and Russia -- and that it would fight against the EU's centralized bureaucracy.
"It's important to have a federation of honest Europeans in Europe," said Bulgarian right-winger Volen Siderov. "We are for a federal Europe made up of fatherlands working together… We don't want a centralist federalized states."
The leaders declined to name any other parties the new movement was negotiating with, but ruled out talks with German right-wing extremists NPD and VDU.
The plans for a pan-European nationalist party draw a stinging rebuke from Austria's Social Democrats (SPÖ) who called it "completely absurd and contradictory."
"The project of European integration is aimed at a peaceful cooperation of EU states and, without any doubt, against nationalist efforts" said Elisabeth Grossman, SPÖ's spokesperson for European affairs.
What's in a name?
The new party -- which is yet to get an official name -- is currently referred to as the "European Patriotic Party" or the European Freedom Party."
In order to launch a party on the European level that would receive benefits from the 27-member block, the right-wing caucus still needs to get the support of parties from three additional EU countries.
The group, however, hopes to extend their membership beyond the bare minimum and surpass the 20-seat threshold necessary to be recognized by the European Parliament.
"Our goal is clear, we want more than 10 parties as members and ideally one party from each EU country," Starche said.
An extremist deja-vu
A previous attempt by European right-wingers to form a European parliamentary block called Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty (ITS) was short-lived because of internal disagreements.
The bloc was dissolved on Nov. 14 after Romanian deputies quit the group in response to racially insulting comments by an Italian politician.
Asked about the chances of success of the new party, Le Pen said "it's not necessary to hope in order to try, nor to succeed in order to persevere."
The new grouping does not want to see Turkey become a member of the European Union and vehemently opposes the efforts of the predominantly Muslim Kosovo Albanians to secede from Serbia.
The party is expected to be officially launched by November 2008.
Source: Deutsche Welle (English)
2 comments:
Note: The Vlaams Belang has not made any political alience with the party, let alone joined it.
http://tundratabloid.blogspot.com/2008/01/mred-and-wilbur-take-lgf-to-task.html
Hi KGS,
I realize that everybody is ready to jump to this or that side, based on the opinion they're trying to advance. I try to focus on reporting the news. I bring below a summary of what they wrote on their site.
There are a few issues here:
1. There is no party, yet, and therefore Vlaams Belang cannot join it.
2. They were in the very recent past a member of such a party.
3. It's not the party issues itself that prevent them from joining one today, but rather EU restrictions.
----
The parties that had belonged to the ITS fraction (Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty) in the EU met in Vienna on the initiative of the FPÖ.
Various dossiers were discussed, including the possibility of an umbrella right wing-national organization.
The chairman of the FPÖ, Heinz-Christian Strache, spoke about his wish to form contacts with democratic right-wing parties in all of Europe in order to support each other in the fight against the political-correct establishment.
The Vlaams Belang too part in these talks and is of course ready for close contact and the best relations with like-minded parties abroad. Right now we can't commit to the form of European political party-forming. The whole issue is very premature. Europe imposes unreasonable criteria for forming umbrella European political parties, where ideological regulations of political correctness are imposed in an unacceptable and undemocratic manner.
Vlaams Belang prefers bilateral contacts with European 'friends in spirit', rather than an umbrella party.
A consensus was reached about a number of principles which cross borders: opposition to Turkey entering the EU, Treaty of Lisbon replacing EU constitution.
(Vlaams Belang)
Post a Comment