AGL56.41▲ 1.11 (0.02%)AIRLINK180.1▲ 3.78 (0.02%)BOP13.09▼ -0.36 (-0.03%)CNERGY7.48▼ -0.01 (0.00%)DCL9.44▼ -0.02 (0.00%)DFML45.89▼ -0.23 (0.00%)DGKC134.53▲ 0.65 (0.00%)FCCL45.18▼ -0.11 (0.00%)FFL16.06▲ 0.84 (0.06%)HUBC133.24▲ 0.14 (0.00%)HUMNL13.02▲ 0.01 (0.00%)KEL4.45▲ 0 (0.00%)KOSM5.97▲ 0.01 (0.00%)MLCF58.81▲ 0.78 (0.01%)NBP73.41▲ 0.21 (0.00%)OGDC218.59▲ 0.31 (0.00%)PAEL42.62▲ 1 (0.02%)PIBTL9.92▲ 0.5 (0.05%)PPL183.08▼ -1.54 (-0.01%)PRL35.33▲ 0.15 (0.00%)PTC24.34▲ 0.64 (0.03%)SEARL95.82▲ 1.29 (0.01%)TELE7.88▲ 0.01 (0.00%)TOMCL34.56▲ 0.34 (0.01%)TPLP10.84▲ 0.1 (0.01%)TREET22.27▲ 0.55 (0.03%)TRG60.94▼ -0.4 (-0.01%)UNITY29.14▼ -0.27 (-0.01%)WTL1.33▼ -0.01 (-0.01%)

European nationalists eye new alliance at Warsaw talks

Share
Tweet
WhatsApp
Share on Linkedin
[tta_listen_btn]

Leaders of European far-right and nationalist parties meet in Warsaw on Saturday with the aim of creating a powerful new alliance that would become the second-biggest grouping in the European Parliament.

The talks will include around 14 parties and are being hosted by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of Poland’s ruling right-wing popu-list Law and Justice (PiS) party.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and French far-right leader Marine Le Pen are expected to attend, although organisers have not released a guest list.

Le Pen, a candidate in France’s presidential election in April, said the meeting was “an impor-tant step” but she did not expect any imminent announcement of a new group.

“We can be optimistic about the launch of this political force in the months to come,” she told re-porters.

One notable absentee will be Matteo Salvini, leader of Italy’s League, which put out a state-ment saying that “the time needs to be right and egoism and fear (both from parties and nations) need to be overcome”.

Salvini was one of the signatories of a declaration in July announc-ing plans for a “grand alliance” in the European Parliament — the prelude for Saturday’s talks.

The League and Le Pen’s Na-tional Rally are in the European Parliament’s Identity and Democ-racy Group, while PiS, Spain’s Vox and the Brothers of Italy party are in the European Con-servatives and Reformists Group.

Orban’s Fidesz left the European People’s Party, the biggest group in the parliament, in March and is looking for a new home.

Hungarian Families Minister Katalin Novak said the party’s aim was “to ensure that people with a nationalist, pro-freedom, anti-immigration and respect for traditional family values are rep-resented as strongly as possible in European decision-making”.

Ewa Marciniak, a political scien-tist at the Polish Academy of Sci-ences, said participants in Satur-day’s talks would try to “mini-mise the differences between them”, including on issues such as relations with Russia, as well as attitudes to abortion and LGBTQ rights.Instead she said they would em-phasise “their willingness to go back to the roots of the European Union”.The EU accuses Poland and Hungary of rolling back democ-ratic freedoms in recent years and has threatened to withhold fund-ing using a new conditionality mechanism.

Poland and Hungary say their sovereignty is under threat and have adopted increasingly euro-sceptic rhetoric.—Agencies

Related Posts

Get Alerts

© 2024 All rights reserved | Pakistan Observer