Far-right parties from around Europe meet in Milan

Italy’s Lega leader Matteo Salvini on Monday is holding a meeting in Milan of far-right parties from around Europe in the hope of forging an alliance of nationalists ahead of next month’s European parliament elections.

The meeting hosted by deputy prime minister and interior minister Salvini is being held under the slogan “Towards a common sense Europe… Peoples rise up.”

European populists including Salvini’s anti-immigrant Lega are hoping for a so-called “sovereignist” grouping of at least 70-80 MEPs in the 751-member European Parliament after the May 26 election.

Salvini said that up to 20 parties could join a hypothetical bloc but three stalwarts of the European right, Marine Le Pen of France’s National Rally (NR), Poland’s governing PiS (Law and Justice party) and Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party, are not attending the Milan meeting. Orban has voiced admiration for Salvini but his party belongs to the European parliament’s centre-right European People’s party (EPP) group.

Salvini held talks with Le Pen in Paris on Friday and said she would come to a bigger meeting in Milan in May, which, according to Salvini “at least 15-20 countries” will attend.

The few confirmed attendees are Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD), the country’s biggest opposition party which has said it wants “a Europe of fatherlands”, the Danish People’s Party and the Finns Party.

Most of Europe’s right-wing nationalists are currently divided into three blocs and a tangled web of alliances in the European Parliament, which they would like to overhaul if not destroy.

They are the Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF) group — which includes the Lega and RN as well as Austria’s Freedom Party and the Netherlands’ Party for Freedom — the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD).
Via France 24