Tuesday, 2 November 2010
proof if it is needed......
Euro-Med 'Parliament' in session....Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2010 19:32:39 +0000 (GMT) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJu82glr-bg http://euobserver.com/?aid=31122
http://euobserver.com/?aid=31122Far-right 'lite' to push for EU referendum on Turkish accession
Vienna: Far-right lite strategising took place in the Austrian capital
for a second year running (Photo: Wikipedia/Thomas Binderhofer)
LEIGH PHILLIPS - 25.10.2010
Europe's far-right 'lite' parties are to push for a pan-European
referendum on Turkish accession to the bloc under the EU's new rules.
Six extreme right parties meeting in Vienna on Saturday (23 october) -
Austria's Freedom Party (FPO), Belgium's Flemish separatists of the
Vlaams Belang, the Danish People's Party, Italy's anti-immigrant
Northern League, the Slovak National Party and the Sweden Democrats -
are about to launch their own citizens' campaign hot on the heels of
the success of the left-wing online pressure group Avaaz, which earlie
this month collected a million names demanding a ban on genetically
modified organisms across the EU.
Under Lisbon Treaty rules, which entered into life in January this
year, the European Citizens' Initiative forces the European Commission
to consider proposing legislation if a million EU voters sign a
petition.
The Vienna conference, entitled "EU after the Lisbon Treaty" also
discussed Islam in Europe and immigration, two hobby-horses of the
parties.
The meeting follows a similar gathering in Vienna last year in advance
of a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland, where most of
the same clutch of parties strategised how to campaign against passage
of the treaty.
While the traditional far right is explicitly anti-EU, and the
so-called far-right 'lite' parties are certainly eurosceptic, the
parties in Vienna on Saturday said they opposed Turkish accession in
order to defend the Union.
"That would be the end of the European Union," said FPO leader
Heinz-Christian Strache, "and the beginning of a Eurasian-African Union
that would completely go against our European peace project and must
therefore not be allowed."
The meeting represents a further shift in the realignment on the far
right. Many of the attendees have strived to strip themselves of any
association with the fascist nostalgia of the hardcore far right,
focussing on Islam and immigration and embracing Israel, and met with
considerable success in recent years.
Most recently, the nationalist Sweden Democrats, which in 2001
cleansed itself of its hardcore element (which would later establish
themselves as the National Democrats) in September's 2010 general
election crossed for the first time the four percent threshold
necessary for a parliamentary representation, polling 5.7 percent and
winning 20
seats.
The British National Party, Hungary's paramilitary-linked Jobbik and
Bulgaria's Ataka were all explicitly not invited to Vienna by the
Freedom Party organisers, who described such parties as being on the
extreme right.
At last year's Vienna conference, organised by the FPO's education
division, Ataka and France's Front National had been invited.
Saturday's Vienna congress meeting will also form part of the FPO's
attempts to court the European Freedom and Democracy (EFD) grouping in
the European Parliament led by Britain's non-far-right UK Independence
Party.
The FPO was frozen out of the eurosceptic grouping in the chamber by
Ukip in the horse-trading among different parties in the wake of last
year's European Parliament elections. But the EFD nevertheless has a
number of member parties whose ideology is considered hard right by
most monitors of the scene. While comfortable with these other parties,
Ukip for its part wants nothing to do with the FPO.
However, the Northern League, the Danish People's Party and Slovakia's
SNS, who sit with Ukip in the EFD, were all at the FPO event and are on
friendlier terms with the Austrian party.
According to sources close to the parliamentary grouping, Ukip "has
tried to keep its distance as the FPO are simply too extreme."
"There is something of a realignment going on, although it's not a
fixed situation. It's in flux. If these people can manage to make the
changes to their parties or convince people that they have nothing to
do with the genuine far right, that people understand they are not
extreme, they have a real chance."
"But it's also about the money. A larger grouping in the European
Parliament brings in more money, and it's a lonely place to be sitting
on your own without a group," said the source.
The FPO currently sits in Brussels unattached to any parliamentary
grouping. "There has been an overture from the FPO to join for quite
some months now. But I don't think it's going to happen," the contact
said.
According to the European Parliament, adding another couple of members
in general would not result in a great deal more money, but adding
members that use another language would produce a "step-change" in
their
funding. The group has no german-speaking MEPs.
It has yet to be decided whether the EFD will participate as a group
in the anti-Turkey petition drive, but the grouping is unanimous in
opposing the country's accession the bloc, EFD spokesman Hermann Kelly
told EUobserver.
"All members of the EFD are extremely critical of Turkish accession.
Turkey is too big, too poor and too different," he said.
"The Turkish state is guilty of the abuse of basic human rights, and
has invaded and continues to occupy the Republic of Cyprus," he added.
He rejected however that such a perspective was unique to the far
right.
"The EFD is a group of democractic parties and in no way accepts the
sobriquet 'right-wing'."
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