It's Official - BNP Have Grouping in EP
As far as he can see, TB seems to be the first reporting this, but he can't quite bring himself to drop the E word for this filth:
PRESS CONFERENCE INVITATION
MEP Bruno Gollnisch, vice-President of the Front National (FN) for International affairs
MEP Nick Griffin, Chairman of the British National Party (BNP)
MEP Balczó Zoltán, vice president of JOBBIK Movement for a Better Hungary
invite you to a press conference presenting the Alliance of the European National Movements (AENM) :
Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 9:30 am
European Parliament in Brussels
Room PHS P0A050
Great, a wedge of taxpayers money coming their way. Thanks Labour.
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9 comments:
Well that's only three parties listed. They need to have eight different countries in their group for it to be officially ratified, no? So where are the other five going to come from?
Like GreenKeane says - fear not (or at least, fear slightly less than you otherwise would have).
They are setting up a Europarty, which is different from a Group in the European Parliament and has less stringent requirements. I think they can still claim some money by doing it, but it's much, much less.
From press reports they seem to have recruited Jobbik from Hungary (3 MEPs), the BNP (2 MEPs) and the Front Nationale in France (3 MEPs). They've also got parties from Italy, Sweden and Belgium, but none of them have any MEPs, so might count towards a Europarty (depends how much support they have) but not a European Parliament group.
Right now, it simply is not possible for them to get the other parties they'd need to form a European Parliament group. Beyond the 3 they've recruited, the other far-right parties in the EP they could recruit are ATAKA from Bulgaria (2 MEPs), the Greater Romania Party or New Generation party from Romania (2 and 1 MEPs respectively), the Austrian Freedom party (2), the Belgian Vlaams Belgang (2 seats) and the Dutch Freedom Party (4 seats).
If they got them all they would have parties from enough different countries... but a group also requires at least 25 MEPs, and all of them together are only 21. On top of that the Dutch Freedom Party said after the elections they wouldn't join any group, so the best they can probably do is 17, a long way short.
They don't have enough MEP's to form a group large enough to get additional funding.
But this is something to keep an eye on in the future because they already appear to have Political Parties from Nine Countries signed up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_of_European_National_Movements
Today, we are all Eurosceptics.
Gareth is right. This isn't actually an officially recognised political grouping of the European Parliament (which requires a minimum of twenty five MEPs from seven different EU countries). The threshold was previously lower but was altered by the Constitutional Affairs committee in advance of the 2009 elections.
The BNP did attempt to set one up with MEPs from Jobbik, the Front National, the Greater Romania Party and the Bulgarian Attack Coalition after the 2009 elections but couldn't satisfy the official quota for group formation.
Looking at the numbers, it will be nearly impossible for a far-right group such as the Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty group which existed for part of the second half of the 2004-9 session to be constituted during this Parliament.
I suspect they have others, just that these 3 are the leaders
Alliance of the European National Movements, AENM, or maybe
Association NATional Hardline Euro MAlcontents
ANATHEMA
https://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/politics-parties.13f
You got there first:
Considering that the BNP (according to most, if not all media outlets), has very little support and little financial support, I cannot help but wonder what all the furore is about. Surely if this is the case we should just ignore them. Or is there something I have missed.
Just what are you all so concerned.
Neve mind I think I know.