Europe of Nations and Freedom

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Europe of Nations and Freedom
Official abbreviation ENF (English), ENL (French)
Members
36/751
Group leaders FranceFrance Nicolas Bay Marcel de Graaff
NetherlandsNetherlands 
founding 2015
predecessor Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty (2007)
resolution 2019
successor Identity and democracy
Alignment EU skepticism
Nationalism (partly also ethnic nationalism )
National
conservatism Right-wing extremism Right-wing
populism
European party Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom (MENL)
Website www.enfgroup-ep.eu

Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF; English Europe of Nations and Freedom , ENF; French Europe des nations et des libertés , ENL ) was a parliamentary group in the European Parliament whose members are characterized by right-wing populist to right-wing extremist . With 36 members it was the smallest group in Parliament. Joint group leaders were Marcel de Graaff from the Dutch Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) and, since September 12, 2017, Nicolas Bay from the French Rassemblement National (RN). Bay's predecessor, until her move to the French parliament in June 2017, was FN chairwoman Marine Le Pen .

The Rassemblement National, formerly Front National, provided the majority of the members. The other large parties represented in the parliamentary group were the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), the Italian Lega and the Dutch Partij voor de Vrijheid. From Germany, Marcus Pretzell ( The Blue Party , formerly Alternative for Germany ) was represented in the parliamentary group. The majority of the group members belonged to the European party Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom .

After the European elections in 2019 , a successor parliamentary group was founded with Identity and Democracy , which, in addition to the previous ENF parties, was joined by members of the Alternative für Deutschland (EFDD parliamentary group) as well as the Danish People's Party and The Finns (both ECR parliamentary group) .

history

prehistory

The members of the Front National (FN), the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and the Vlaams Belang (VB) have been non-attached to the European Parliament since the dissolution of the short-lived faction Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty in November 2007. The three parties have worked together since 2010 within the European Alliance for Freedom (EAF).

Before the 2014 European elections , the FN, FPÖ and VB, together with the PVV and Lega Nord, announced that a parliamentary group would be founded after the election. After the planned Slovak SNS missed entry into parliament and the also planned Sweden Democrats joined the UKIP- dominated EFDD parliamentary group, the parliamentary group could not be founded because the necessary criterion that members from seven countries are represented in it could not be established could be met.

In October 2014 the European party Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom (MENL) was founded, which replaced the EAF. Since the end of 2016, no ENF MEPs have been members of the EAF, which however still existed until the end of 2017.

founding

On June 15, 2015, a parliamentary group with 36 members was founded. The basis for this was that the British MP Janice Atkinson could be won for the group. This was excluded from UKIP after an expense scandal . Shortly before, the FN membership of the European parliamentarian and FN founder Jean-Marie Le Pen had been suspended due to anti-Semitic statements. According to Atkinson, this made it easier for him to join the new parliamentary group. In addition, the two remaining MPs of the Polish Congress of the New Right (KNP) could be won as parliamentary group members. The Dutch PVV chairman Geert Wilders had ruled out cooperation with the KNP, in particular its then chairman Janusz Korwin-Mikke , in mid-2014.

Of the 24 MPs originally elected on the lists of the FN, 20 joined the parliamentary group for the time being. Joëlle Bergeron resigned from the FN shortly after the election after FN officials asked her to return her mandate because of her advocacy for immigrants to vote. The FN co-founder and father of Marine, Jean-Marie Le Pen , was not involved in the formation of the faction and was later expelled from the FN. Out of solidarity with Jean-Marie Le Pen, Bruno Gollnisch also renounced his membership in the parliamentary group. Aymeric Chauprade was on a trip abroad while the faction was being formed. He joined the parliamentary group on his return, but left the parliamentary group and party in November 2015.

The KNP originally sent four MPs to the European Parliament, but their number was reduced to two after an internal party dispute. A mandate of the PVV was vacant after the death of Hans Jansen when the ENF was founded, the successor Auke Zijlstra joined the ENF parliamentary group.

Changes since 2015

On July 15, 2015, Constantin Laurențiu Rebega , who was elected for the Partidul Conservator , declared his transfer from the social democratic group to the ENF. On May 1, 2016, Marcus Pretzell (then AfD ) joined the parliamentary group. Marco Zanni (M5S) from the EFDD parliamentary group joined the ENF on January 11, 2017 .

The co-group leader Marine Le Pen moved into the French National Assembly in June 2017 and therefore had to surrender her mandate in the European Parliament. Her successor in the group chairmanship was Nicolas Bay.

On October 2, 2017, the former Front National Vice-Vice President Florian Philippot as well as Mireille d'Ornano and Sophie Montel left the ENF after Philippot's group Les Patriotes split off from the FN. All three joined the EFDD group two days later. On March 1, 2018, Laurențiu Rebega resigned from the parliamentary group and applied to join the EKR parliamentary group, which took place shortly afterwards. On May 28th, Bernard Monot , another member of the FN , left the parliamentary group. He joined the EFDD parliamentary group and switched to the Debout la France (DLF) party. He was followed by Sylvie Goddyn on October 19, 2018, after she had previously publicly declared her support for the DLF list for the 2019 European elections and was subsequently excluded from the RN.

In early 2019, the three remaining UKIP MPs from the EFDD joined the ENF, including the new party leader Gerard Batten .

Champagnergate

In early 2018, the European Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control found excessive spending by the ENF in what became known as the Champagne Gate. Among other things, in 2016 the ENF bought 234 bottles of champagne (6 per session, on average for 81 euros), food for 400 euros per person and 110 Christmas presents worth 100 euros each on account of the European Parliament. Overall, costs of 420,000 euros can be proven, which were paid with tax money. Receipts were missing for many expenses and the regulations for public tenders were not complied with. Harald Vilimsky , vice-head of the ENF parliamentary group and general secretary of the FPÖ at the time , blamed a former employee of the French parliamentary group for this. Following the discoveries, Parliament demanded the money back.

European elections 2019

In April 2019, Matteo Salvini , Italian interior minister and chairman of the Lega involved in the ENF, announced a new “large” parliamentary group of national-conservative and right-wing populist parties after the 2019 European elections . In addition to the previous ENF member parties , the Alternative for Germany (previously EFDD), the Danish People's Party and the Finnish Perussuomalaiset party (both EKR) as well as the parties Sme rodina (Slovakia) and EKRE (Estonia), which were not previously represented in the European Parliament, had announced their participation. In the election, Sme Rodina and the previous ENF members PVV, UKIP and KNP missed out on parliament. The successor group was founded on June 12, 2019 under the name Identity and Democracy with 73 members.

Members

The group consisted of 36 members from eight countries.

country Political party Number at establishment Number currently European
party 		Members
BelgiumBelgium Belgium Vlaams Belang (VB) 1 1 MENL Gerolf Annemans
GermanyGermany Germany The blue party - 1 MENL Marcus Pretzell (since May 1, 2016)
FranceFrance France Front National (FN) or similar 20th 15th MENL Louis Aliot (until July 20, 2017), France James (from July 21, 2017), Marie-Christine Arnautu , Nicolas Bay , Dominique Bilde , Marie-Christine Boutonnet , Steeve Briois , Mireille d'Ornano (until October 2, 2017) , Edouard Ferrand , Sylvie Goddyn (until October 19, 2018), Jean-François Jalkh , Gilles Lebreton , Marine Le Pen (until June 18, 2017), Christelle Lechevalier (from June 19, 2017), Philippe Loiseau , Dominique Martin , Joëlle Mélin , Bernard Monot (until May 28, 2018), Sophie Montel (until October 2, 2017), Jean-Luc Schaffhauser * , Mylène Troszczynski , Aymeric Chauprade (June 24, 2015 to November 10, 2015) , Florian Philippot (untilOctober 2, 2017)October 2017)
ItalyItaly Italy Lega Nord (Lega) 5 6th  MENL Mara Bizzotto , Mario Borghezio , Angelo Ciocca (since July 7, 2016), Lorenzo Fontana (until March 22, 2018), Matteo Salvini (until March 22, 2018), Gianluca Buonanno (July 1, 2014 to June 5, 2016) , Marco Zanni (elected for M5S , ENF since January 11, 2017, Lega since May 15, 2018)
NetherlandsNetherlands Netherlands Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) 3 4th - Marcel de Graaff , Olaf Stuger , Auke Zijlstra (since September 8, 2015), Vicky Maeijer (until March 15, 2017) , Andre Elissen (since June 13, 2017)
AustriaAustria Austria Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) 4th 4th MENL Barbara Kappel , Georg Mayer , Franz Obermayr , Harald Vilimsky
PolandPoland Poland Congress Nowej Prawicy (KNP) 2 2 MENL Michał Marusik , Stanisław Żółtek
RomaniaRomania Romania chosen for PC - - MENL Laurențiu Rebega (July 15, 2015 to March 1, 2018)
United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom elected for UKIP 1 1 MENL Janice Atkinson
UKIP - 2 - Gerard Batten , John Stuart Agnew (since January 16, 2019), Jane Collins (January 16, 2019 to April 15, 2019)
total 36 36
O From June 2018 Rassemblement National (RN)
* Schaffhauser was elected to the European Parliament via the list of the FN ("Front national - Rassemblement bleu Marine"), but does not belong to it.

Board

Functions in the parliamentary group
function Surname country national party
Chair
(until June 18, 2017) 		Marine Le Pen FranceFrance France RN
Chairman
(since September 12, 2017) 		Nicolas Bay FranceFrance France RN
Chairman Marcel de Graaff NetherlandsNetherlands Netherlands PVV
vice-chairman Janice Atkinson United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom -
Deputy Chairman Michał Marusik PolandPoland Poland KNP
Deputy Chairman Matteo Salvini ItalyItaly Italy Lega
Deputy Chairman Edouard Ferrand FranceFrance France RN
Deputy Chairman
(August 25, 2015 to March 1, 2018) 		Laurențiu Rebega RomaniaRomania Romania -
Deputy Chairman Harald Vilimsky AustriaAustria Austria FPÖ
Treasurer Gerolf Annemans BelgiumBelgium Belgium VB

Congresses

Congress 2016

At the parliamentary group's first congress in Milan in January 2016, representatives of the Russian ruling party United Russia , the Romanian Partidul România Mare , the British National Party and the Czech Svoboda a přímá demokracie were present in addition to the parties involved in the group .

Congress January 2017

On January 21, 2017, an ENF congress took place in the Rhein-Mosel-Halle in Koblenz . Around 1000 delegates attended the meeting organized by the North Rhine-Westphalian AfD chairman and ENF member Marcus Pretzell .

It took place against the backdrop of the election year 2017 , in which there were important elections in France, the Netherlands and Germany. First appeared Marine Le Pen , the French presidential candidate of the far-right French party Front National , together with Frauke Petry on by the AFD in Germany. The Dutch right-wing populist Geert Wilders , the chairman of the Italian Lega Nord Matteo Salvini and representative of the Austrian FPÖ also took part in the event. In his speech, Wilders used the slogan Europe needs Frauke instead of Angela , whereupon the delegates Merkel must go, Merkel must go away .

In the run-up to the event, the organizers' announcement that “all public service media”, the Handelsblatt , the right-wing populist Compact magazine and two journalists from Der Spiegel and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung had been banned from the conference made headlines.

About 3000 demonstrators protested in Koblenz against the ENF event under the motto Koblenz stays colorful and peaceful. The Minister-President of Rhineland-Palatinate, Malu Dreyer , took part in the counter-event . She demanded “It is time that nobody stayed at home” and “People should stand up for a free and peaceful Europe and object if right-wing populist arguments are made at regulars' tables or elsewhere”. The SPD chairman Sigmar Gabriel and Simone Peter , the chairwoman of Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen , were also present. One of the main organizers was the DGB .

Congress December 2017

A congress took place in Prague on December 16, 2017. The Czech politician Tomio Okamura acted as host . Participants were the French National Front leader Marine Le Pen and the Dutch politician Geert Wilders . Wilders said: “We must have the courage to impose entry bans, as President Trump did in the United States. We must have the courage to send back any boat with illegal immigrants, as Australia has long done. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Niklaus Nuspliger: New right-wing populist parliamentary group in the EU Parliament: Le Pen's late satisfaction. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung. June 16, 2015, accessed June 16, 2015 .
  2. ^ DiePresse.com: Right-wing parliamentary group in the EU Parliament: "Are not enemies of Europe". In: DiePresse.com. June 16, 2015, accessed June 16, 2015 .
  3. ↑ Thomas Mayer: Right-wing parliamentary group: Le Pen wants to abolish the euro. In: The Standard. June 16, 2015, accessed June 16, 2015 .
  4. ↑ a b EurActiv.de: Right-wing extremists found faction in the EU Parliament. In: EurActiv.de. June 16, 2015, accessed June 16, 2015 .
  5. ↑ Hubertus Volmer: Geert Wilders & Co .: The right do not fit together at all. In: n-tv. May 21, 2014, accessed June 17, 2015 .
  6. ↑ n-tv author: Family row among right-wing extremists: This is how the Front National falls out. In: n-tv. May 5, 2015, accessed July 21, 2015 .
  7. ↑ Der Standard: Expense scandal with ex-UKIP MP Atkinson. In: The Standard. June 16, 2015, accessed June 17, 2015 .
  8. ↑ Robert Smolka: KNP remains non-attached in the EU Parliament. In: polen-heute.de. Poland Today June 30, 2014, Retrieved June 17, 2015 .
  9. ↑ euronews.com: UKIP's Farage seals EP deal. In: euronews.com. Euronews, June 19, 2014, accessed June 17, 2015 .
  10. ^ Huffington Post: FN: Jean-Marie Le Pen et Bruno Gollnisch privés de groupe au Parlement européen. In: huffingtonpost.fr. Huffington Post (France), June 16, 2015, accessed June 17, 2015 (French).
  11. ↑ Olivier Faye, Jean-Baptiste Chastand: Jean-Marie Le Pen ne fera pas partie du groupe d'eurodéputés d'extrême droite. In: Le Monde. June 16, 2015, accessed June 17, 2015 (French).
  12. ↑ EP: Aymeric Chauprage (all election periods). In: europarl.europa.eu. European Parliament, accessed June 25, 2015 .
  13. ↑ http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2015/11/09/aymeric-chauprade-quitte-le-front-national_4806113_823448.html
  14. ↑ DutchNews: PVV 'near' to forming EU alliance: will Wilders move to Brussels? In: dutchnews.nl. DutchNews, June 13, 2015, accessed June 17, 2015 .
  15. ↑ Auke Zijlstra (PVV) invested toetreding dead Europees Parliament. Retrieved April 15, 2018 (Dutch).
  16. ↑ Yves Herman: Right-wing EU group is growing: Social Democrat Rebega changes. In: Kurier.at. July 15, 2015, accessed July 21, 2015 .
  17. ↑ https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/articles/news/movers-and-shakers-9-october-2017
  18. ↑ https://www.francetvinfo.fr/politique/marine-le-pen/apres-son-ralliement-a-nicolas-dupont-aignan-l-ex-fn-bernard-monot-vante-le-courage-et -les-idees-claires-du-leader-de-debout-la-france_2784079.html
  19. ↑ https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/articles/news/movers-and-shakers-29-october-2018
  20. ↑ https://www.thelocal.fr/20190116/ukip-leader-joins-marine-le-pens-far-right-eu-group
  21. ↑ Christian Kerl: Right wing in the EU Parliament because of "Champagnergate" under pressure. In: Abendblatt.de. May 30, 18, accessed June 11, 2018 .
  22. ↑ Oliver Das Gupta: Champagnergate. In: sueddeutsche.de. April 2, 2018, accessed June 11, 2018 .
  23. ^ FPÖ to Champagne Gate: It was the French! In: heute.at. March 29, 2018, accessed June 11, 2018 .
  24. ↑ a b Status: November 4, 2018, EP: Members of the ENF Group. In: europarl.europa.eu. European Parliament, June 16, 2015, accessed June 27, 2015 .
  25. ↑ Justus Bender: AfD party congress struggles for the future of the party. In: faz.net. April 30, 2016, Retrieved May 5, 2016 .
  26. ↑ Diaconu dezminte LEGATURA PRU - naţionaliştii europeni, prin urmăritul penal Rebega. Retrieved April 15, 2018 .
  27. ^ Europe's far-right parties rally in Milan . In: euronews . January 29, 2016 ( euronews.com [accessed April 15, 2018]).
  28. ↑ Le Penová chce zavřít evropské hranice. Na konferenci vystoupil i Okamura | Svět. January 29, 2016, accessed April 15, 2018 (Czech).
  29. ↑ a b c Le Pen accuses Merkel of catastrophic immigration policy in front of zeit.de, January 21, 2017
  30. ↑ European right-wing populists hold congress in Koblenz from swissinfo.ch, on January 21, 2017
  31. ↑ ARD is considering a lawsuit against AfD - and invites party leader Petry to tagesspiegel.de, from January 15, 2017
  32. ↑ Protests against right-wing populist meeting in Koblenz awaits Salzburger Nachrichten, January 20, 2017
  33. ↑ AfD excludes journalists: A clear violation of the law , faz.de, from January 18, 2017
  34. ↑ Thousands demonstrate against right-wing populists Spiegel Online, January 21, 2017
  35. ↑ Thousands turn against the ENF Congress - Dreyer: Contradiction important volksfreund.de, from January 21, 2017
  36. ^ EU "catastrophic organization" euronews.net, from December 16, 2017