They’ve tried hard until the very last second, but at the deadline they had to admit they didn’t make it: Le Pen cannot make it, the far-right group cannot be created, at least for the first plenary session at the new European Parliament. The latest days were spent in enervating negotiations, looking for the last two components needed to create the coalition (which has to be composed of 25 MEPs at least, coming from 7 different Member States), today Front National announced the decision of “taking more time” to create a group in a statement. “Faithful to our values and our political commitments, and at one with our allies,” reads the statement, “we chose to prefer quality and coherence to ease and haste.”
It was impossible for Front National to find other allies in addition to those that had already joined: the Italian Northern League, the Belgian Vlaams Belang, the Austrian FPÖ, and the Dutch Freedom Party. Tensions were could be felt earlier this week, given that Geert Wilders, Dutch leader of the Freedom Party, rejected the possible entrance of a Polish MEP belonging to Congress of the New Right, accused of strong anti-Semitic positions. “Our refusal of an alliance with movements whose members proclaimed ideas conflicting with our values made us impossible to create a political group at the European Parliament within the 23 June deadline,” confirmed Front National. “We regret this on the short-term,” said a party spokesperson, “yet we consider it a moral and political choice on the long-term.”
Le Pen and her partners will then be forced to join the NI group, given the lack of the political group they wanted to create, for the first plenary sessions, yet this is not a ‘permanent condition’: negotiations can go on in fact, and the coalition could be created later on. Still, MEPs will lose the possibility of being assigned elective internal offices (presidency and vice-presidencies of committees and delegations, which are appointed by vote) at least for two years and a half. NI MEPs are also assigned a very short time to talk during sessions, and can present amendments only if they find other 40 MEPs available to sign it. But Front National MEPs said they are “sure it will be possible to create a group very soon” and reassured that negotiations with several parties “are going on and with the strongest determination.”
Northern League members will also go into the NI MEPs: they were the first allies of Le Pen, in an attempt of creating a homogeneous group. The condition is not new to Mario Borghezio, who was already listed into that group at the end of the last term, after his expulsion from the ‘eurosceptics’ group due to his comments on the then Minister Kyenge. In that period “I got on very well with the Le Pens,” wrote Borghezio today, saying he is sure that “if for some time – a short time I think – the entire Northern League delegation will be allocated into the NI group, we will see that ‘good’ comes from a pretended ‘bad’.” According to the Northern League representative, in fact, “we will show that we are renouncing to money, surplus of officials and several advantages, because we do not want dubious aggregations. Pure ‘Five Stars Movement’s philosophy’ – but we are turning it into reality.”
