2024-08-06 14:51:59
Author: Elchin Alioglu
Source: Trend
Right after the European Parliament elections ended, the radical right-wing Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD) party in Germany announced that it would form a new group with other European far-right and radical nationalist parties that won little place in the said institution.
The group called “Europe of Sovereign Nations” (ESN) includes “Reconquista” (Reconquête) from France, “Confederation” from Poland, “Renaissance” (Vzrajdane) from Bulgaria, “End of the Holiday” (Se Acabó La Fiesta) from Spain, ” “Freedom and Direct Democracy” (Svoboda a přímá demokratie, SPD), “Republican Movement” (Hnutie Republika, HP) from Slovakia, “Our Homeland” (Mi Hazánk Mozgalom, MHM) from Hungary and “Union of People and Justice” (Tautos ir tečenkumo) from Lithuania union, TTS) parties were said to participate.
AfD, known as one of the most popular ultra-right parties in the countries of the European Union, takes the positions of ethno-nationalism, Islamophobia and Turkophobia, historical revisionism, and denial of climate change due to anthropogenic causes.
At the first meeting of the new committee of the European Parliament held on July 16, the group was already present, but its composition was somewhat different.
Currently, the “Europe of Sovereign Nations” (ESN) group is the smallest group in the European Parliament with 25 members. The group includes 14 of AfD, 3 each of Poland’s “New Hope” (Nowa Nadzieja, NN) Party and Bulgaria’s “Renaissance”, Czech Republic’s “Freedom and Direct Democracy”, France’s “Reconquista”, Hungary’s “Our Fatherland”, Lithuania’s “Union of People and Justice” and Slovakia’s “Republican Movement” each have 1 deputy.
According to the rules and regulations of the European Parliament, the group is now considered an official faction. Thus, the group was saved from being included in the list of “unaffiliated”. According to the regulations of the European Parliament, “non-attached” deputies have less influence and even less time for their speeches.
The ESN group issued an official statement calling for the restriction of migration to the countries of the European Union, the revision of the “Green Deal”, the increase of social benefits, the provision of military aid to Ukraine, etc. said that he was against it.
The main point is that ESN considers the project of European integration to be a fixed and harmful issue. It should be noted that within the framework of the European integration strategy, the EU countries entrust part of their rights and powers to the European Union structures for the creation of a real political and economic union in the “old continent”.
ESN, co-chaired by René Aust, one of the founders of the AfD, and Stanislav Tyszka, a well-known functionary of the Polish “Confederation” Party, does not intend to operate separately.
The group intends to start a strategic alliance with the newly created “Patriots for Europe” (84 MPs) and “European Conservatives” (78 MPs) factions in the European Parliament.
Thus, the newly formed coalition can seriously compete with liberals and democrats in the European Parliament.
Conservatives, radicals, nationalists and ultra-rightists in the coalition are clearly anti-globalist and Eurosceptic. However, they will not accept the right-wing extremists. For example, although the deputies from Romania’s “SOS Romania” Party wanted to join the coalition, they were rejected due to the party’s chauvinist stance. Polish MP Grzegorz Braun extinguished the Hanukkah menorah in the country’s parliament and called Judaism a “satanic sect”, Slovak MP Milan Mazurek was not accepted into the coalition because he made derogatory statements about the Holocaust.
Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban is the author and initiator of “Patriots for Europe”, which is the 3rd largest faction in the European Parliament consisting of 720 deputies.
Of course, the coalition of right-wing and conservatives in the European Parliament will not be able to change the balance of power in the institution in its favor. Rightists and nationalists can achieve changes and additions to European politics in the post-Soviet space, especially in the South Caucasus.
If we take into account the attitude of the Prime Minister of Italy Giorgio Meloni and the former Prime Minister of Poland, the chairman of the “Law and Justice” Party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, to the processes in our region, especially the calls to develop relations and strategic partnership with Azerbaijan, the possibility of changes increases.
Former Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Andrey Babis (Chairman of the ANO Party) and Herbert Kikl, the Chairman of the Freedom Party in Austria, are among the politicians who are in favor of more intensive relations with the official Baku and consider the biased position of the European Parliament against Azerbaijan to be destructive and illogical.
The “Patriots for Europe” group, led by Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party, includes Marine Le Pen’s “National Unity” (France), Matteo Salvini’s “League” (Italy), as well as Belgium’s “Flemish Interest” (Vlaams Belan), Holland’s ” Freedom” (Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV), Spain’s “Voice” (Vox), Portugal’s “Enough!” (Chega!) and the People’s Party of Denmark (Dansk Folkeparti, DF) also joined.
Among those parties, “Fides”, PVV and “Liga” currently lead the ruling coalitions in their countries.
The coalition of “Europe of Sovereign Nations” and “Patriots for Europe” groups said that they will strive to implement the new strategy.
First of all, the structure intends to take a number of powers from the institutions of the European Union and return them to the EU countries: according to the coalition, extreme bureaucracy and undemocratic environment prevail in the institutions of the European Union.
The coalition also said that it protects the traditions, Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian identity of their countries.
The rightists do not accept the “Green Deal” either and say that this decision slows down economic development in Europe, stifles small farmers with the agrarian market, and protects the interests of large international agricultural companies.
The “Green Deal” adopted in 2020 envisages the establishment of a “climate neutral status” in Europe by 2050 and a 55 percent reduction in the amount of toxic waste into the atmosphere by 2030 compared to 1990.
But in spite of all this, the process of getting tired of sloganeering and the “interests of the collective West” thesis in the European Parliament and the European Union in general, and the search for an alternative and, most importantly, constructive policy, has accelerated.
Expecting radical changes in decision-making in the European Parliament, especially in positions related to strategic issues, in the near future is nothing but naive. Declarations of democracy and liberalism, veiled by libertarianism, globalism, and the view of developing nations as a source of resources, will continue for a long time to come.
It is just a dream that the institution in Strasbourg accepts the geopolitical realities in the South Caucasus and approaches the processes in the region purely from the perspective of international law and justice.
Although the right and the left are trying to start a partnership in the European Parliament and the European Union, it is still too early to talk about the formation of a radical center that can form an objective opposition to the current false liberalism, as well as the establishment of a 4th political theory, apart from liberalism, Marxism and nationalism, Islamophobia and globalism.
The approach to the processes in the South Caucasus will serve as a litmus test for evaluating the activity of the new forces emerging in the European Parliament from this point of view.
If the “new ones” like the “old ones” are only talking and prefer words over action, they will play a fundamental role in the establishment of sustainable peace and stability in the South Caucasus, in the formation of a safe environment, and the destructive position of Armenia in the process of the peace treaty to be signed between Azerbaijan and Armenia. if the official will not see Yerevan’s attempts to win the protection of the West by easily sacrificing its status as an object of international law instead of a subject, then what happened in Strasbourg and Brussels and what will happen next will not matter to us at all.