Continental eurosceptic parties such as the French Front Nationale led by Marine Le Pen and the Dutch Freedom Party led by Geert Wilders are on course to lead a bloc of 38 MEPs from seven countries in the next European Parliament.At the last election in 2009, the same seven countries could only elect a total of 21 eurosceptic MEPs.
It is unlikely, however, that the new bloc of 38 will be joined by Nigel Farage’s eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP), which may increase its numbers of MEPs from 13 at the last election to 18 or 20 of the 73 British seats in the parliament. Polls show UKIP will drive the Conservative Party into third place.
Farage says Le Pen’s party remains “anti-Semitic.” At the weekend, Le Pen called this “defamatory.” She said Farage was “slandering” her.
“We are neither right nor left,” Le Pen told the Sunday Times. She said she is “defending the interests of the French without ideological considerations.”
In between the mutual accusations, Farage will admit that Le Pen “has some good qualities,” and Le Pen insists she would still welcome an alliance with UKIP “with open arms.”
None of which will cheer the so-called centrist parties across the European Union. According to the latest poll figures, they will be down considerably on their current standing of 72 percent in the outgoing parliament, to 65 percent.
Left-wing parties will stand at 12 percent, while parties in parliamentary groups on the right will form 10 percent.
Parties described as ‘radical right’ will take 13 percent.
The figures are from Pollwatch 2014, a poll of polls across the European Union. They indicate that the Continental eurosceptic parties will have enough MEPs from enough EU member states to form a “group” in the assembly.
This is significant because unless at least 25 MEPs from at least seven countries agree to join in a supra-national group, the rules of the parliament deny them access to millions of euros in political funding. The rules also bar them from sitting on committees.
These rules were established to combat what the euro-fanatic founders of the EU saw as the evils of “nationalism” and “national self-interest.”
Indeed, so determined are the “ever closer union” European fanatics to eliminate national feeling in EU institutions that eurocrats at the European Commission are directed never to say the name of their own country. If forced to mention their homeland, they are trained to refer to it only as “the country I know best.”
Any MEP or group of MEPs who refuses to join a group, or is unable to find enough like-minded MEPs to form a group, is isolated with the French term “Non-Inscrit”, meaning unattached.
In the outgoing parliament, five MEPs from Wilders’ Dutch Freedom Party were elected, equal in number to those elected by the Dutch Christian Democratic party. But because Wilders’ MEPs were Non-Inscrits, funding was withheld from them and they were barred from sitting on committees.
Meanwhile their fellow Dutch MEPs who were Christian Democrats had full privileges because there was a centre-right group they could join.
Similarly, MEPs from the Austrian Freedom Party and the Belgian Vlaams Belang party, which wants the independence of Flanders from Belgium, were Non-Inscrits, but can now join a Le Pen-Wilders group.
Polls show there will also be increased numbers of eurosceptic MEPs from parties in Italy, Slovakia and Sweden. They, like Wilders’ Freedom Party which is leading the opinion polls in The Netherlands, will be all now be able to exercise the same powers as other MEPs.
However, even Farage admits that no matter how well UKIP and other eurosceptic parties do in the election: “We’re whistling in the wind if we think we can implement a Eurosceptic agenda from within the European Parliament.”
He told a Tax Payers’ Alliance event in February: “We cannot change a thing in Europe.” While eurosceptics could “have some fun” in the parliament, “it would not last very long.” He saw no hope for a 33 percent blocking minority of eurosceptic MEPs.
Which is why even the EU elite are shrugging off the surge in the polls for eurosceptic parties.
In a BBC interview in January, Martin Schulz, the German socialist MEP who has been president of the European Parliament since 2012 and is now the candidate of the EU socialist parties for president of the European Commission, dismissed the eurosceptic popularity as “nothing new.”
“The Front National is in the European Parliament since 1984. The Lega Nord from Italy within the parliament since 1984. The Eurosceptic parties like Wilders in The Netherlands are already represented in the European Parliament.”
“The European Union will still exist the day after the election.”
MEPs sit in an assembly of 751 members speaking 24 languages and moving between two parliament buildings, one in Brussels and one in Strasbourg in eastern France. Yet MEPs do not have the power to introduce legislation. That power rests solely with the unelected European Commission. Reported by Breitbart 6 hours ago.