Far-right parties form group in EU parliament

The National Front and the Dutch PVV party have formed a new far-right group in the European Parliament.

“I will announce the formation of our group - Europe of Nations and Freedom [ENF] - tomorrow in Brussels”, the National Front chief Marine Le Pen i tweeted on Monday (15 June).

PVV head Geert Wilders i said: “Great news and [a] historical moment”.

He attached a picture of himself and Le Pen smiling and holding wine glasses.

Details of the group’s composition are to be unveiled at a press conference on Tuesday morning.

But the National Front and the PVV already held “co-ordination” meetings with Austria’s FPO party, Belgium’s Vlaams Belang, and Italy’s Lega Nord in the run-up to the announcement.

Under EU rules, a group must contain at least 25 MEPs from at least seven different countries.

Looking at the unattached MEPs left in the pool, the likeliest parties to join Europe of Nations and Freedom are Hungary’s Jobbik and Poland’s Congress of the New Right.

The other unattached deputies are: Greek and German neo-Nazis; a unionist from Northern Ireland; a disgraced Spanish socialist; a German satirist; and two Greek communists.

The Le Pen-Wilders breakthrough means an €25 million or so in extra EU funding over the next four years.

The new group will become the second anti-EU and anti-immigrant faction in the assembly.

The existing one, Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy, led by British MEP Nigel Farage, has kept its distance from Le Pen, who has a toxic image in the UK.

But Farage and Le Pen also see eye-to-eye on Russia.

The EFDD and and most ENF members-to-be voted together to try to block a Russia-critical resolution in Strasbourg last week.

Meanwhile, Le Pen herself is likely to lead the ENF in Brussels.

Last week, the Dutch electoral council said Wilders could take up a seat in the EU house following the death, in May, of PVV euro-deputy Hans Jansen.

But Wilders told the ANP news agency he will “of course” decline.