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Extended European right-wing extremism: new patriots, new alliancesWith the accession of Romania and Bulgaria a network has been established throughout the EU with its headquarters in Brussels.Extremist right-wing tendencies appear to be a national matter in European politics. Almost every European country is confronted with national groups and parties. But are the FPÖ in Austria, the Front National (FN) in France and all the others really only a regional phenomenon or are have they long since become a European problem? With the EU accession of Romania and Bulgaria in January 2007 the extreme right grouping Identity - Tradition - Sovereignty was formed in the European Parliament (EP). In this group members of the European Parliament from the Bulgarian Ataka Party and the Greater Romania Party joined forces with those members from Vlaams Belang, the Front National, the FPÖ and the Italian neo-fascists. Is the EU being abused as a platform for populist, nationalist tendencies?Twenty-three year old Dimitar Stojanov from the Ataka Party in Bulgaria attracted the attention of the European Parliament in autumn 2006. The EU parliament had decided to select the Hungarian Christian Democrat Livia Jaroka as the best member of the year. The reaction of Stojanov, who at the time had observer status in Strasbourg, was to send an email to the parliament president in which he wrote that in his country there were "tens of thousands of gypsy girls that are far more beautiful than this one" adding that "the best of them are expensive, up to 5000 euro a piece". Livia Jaroka is a Roma and is involved in the struggle for the rights of the Roma in the EU and her work is certainly not made any easier by people such as Wollen Siderov, the founder of the Ataka Party who wishes "to make soap" of the Roma. Ataka represents positions such as: Bulgaria is threatened by the flood of foreigners, by the Turks and "gypsies" in the country and by the USA, which is "under Jewish influence". In the Bulgarian parliamentary elections in 2005 the party won almost nine per cent of the votes. Since the beginning of 2007 Dimitar Stojanov is its sole Member of the European Parliament (MEP). The Greater Romania Party is represented by five members in the European Parliament. In 2000 this party was the second strongest in the country with 21 per cent of the votes. The founder, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, even reached a figure of 33 per cent in the presidential elections. At present the party circles around the 13 per cent mark. Until 1989 Tudor was a well-known poet laureate who described Ceausescu as a "great patriot". After 1990 his poetry became anti-semitic, as a quote can illustrate: "[…]Rabbi, Rabbi, you old nag/ you old soft-brained man in tatters/ you spit on the holy things of Romania […]". The election campaign of the Greater Romania Party incites criticism of Roma and Sinti as well as of the Hungarian minority: "Bands of gypsies" should be "liquidated without further ado", and "Jews made into soap". The formation of the extreme right-wing grouping Identity – Tradition – Sovereignty (ITS). The official formation of ITS took place on 15 January 2007, that is only two weeks after the parliamentary observers of the new member countries had become full MEPs. The grouping under the chair of Frenchman Bruno Gollnisch (FN) consists of the Front National (FN) with seven MEPs including Le Pen, the Greater Romania Party with five MEPs, the Belgian Vlaams Belang (successor of Vlaams Blok which was banned in Belgium) with three MEPs, two Italian neo-fascists including Alessandra Mussolini, the representative of Ataka, a British member and the Austrian Andreas Mölzer from the FPÖ who is regarded as the intellectual foster-father of the grouping. Bruno Gollnisch is a much talked about figure, as in France he is involved in a court case to do with public denial of the Holocaust, while Alessandra Mussolini is famous for the fact that her model is her grandfather Benito Mussolini and that she would prefer to be "fascist than gay". In view of these facts the Austrian member Othmar Karas from the European Peoples Party demanded that in January that the FPÖ should "show its colours". For Karas and most of the MEPs the extreme right group stands for anti-European thinking, hatred of the Jews, aggression towards Roma and lack of respect for those who think differently. Karas wanted to know whether the FPÖ could live with this. On 15 January he received the answer. The prehistory In fact the FPÖ has been living with these facts for some time, they have, after all, organised a number of meetings where the aim was to unite Europe's extreme right wing parties. In 2001, for example, Istvan Csurka, founder of the Hungarian Party for Justice and Life (MIEP) was Mölzer's guest. With five and a half per cent of the votes the MIEP had only just managed to enter parliament (as it happens for the final time up to now) but in 2001 it was regarded in Hungary as a potential coalition partner for the ruling conservatives. In Mölzer's journal Zur Zeit (26/2001) Csurka was able to clearly express his anti-semitic view of Europe: in 1945 Europe was disempowered by the Jewish world conspiracy and (intellectually) colonised In Vienna in 2005 there was an important meeting of the European extreme right wing. Mölzer invited representatives of those parties that were subsequently to form the extreme right group Identity – Tradition – Sovereignty (ITS). After this meeting those who had taken part published a declaration in which they demanded adherence to the concept of a Christian Europe, emphasised their rejection of the EU constitution and Turkey's membership of the EU. In addition they described mass immigration, globalisation and political correctness as the greatest dangers for the future. Alliance of "hereditary enemies"? 19 members of parliament from six different countries are necessary to form a grouping in the EU. ITS had 20 members from seven countries. A grouping not only has a right to chair committees but also a right to more speaking time and, above all, to additional funds, in the case of the ITS about 1 million euro. As far as the future of ITS was concerned, Andreas Mölzer was initially confident: " the potential lies at around 40 members of parliament." Here he is most likely thinking also of the ten MEPs of the League of Polish Families (LPR). In December 2006 the LPR made the headlines when a video from 2004 surfaced in which a burning swastika could be seen and calls of "Sieg Heil" heard. In addition to skinheads and hooligans prominent members of the "All Polish Youth" could also be seen. The founder of this group, Roman Giertych, is also chairperson of the LPR as well as deputy prime minister and Polish education minister. Giertych's father, the MEP Maciej Giertych, is in favour of the Biblical description of Creation being taught in schools rather than the theory of evolution. In addition to homosexuals, "Jewry", the "Freemasons" and the "Germans" are regarded as the enemies of the fatherland and the Church. Intensive advances on the part of the ITS thus seem only logical. Such advances, however, bring the leader Mölzer into considerable difficulties, as they are regarded in the German and Austrian extreme right-wing scene as "betrayal". An important point in such approaches is the recognition of the Oder-Neisse Polish-German border, which is regarded in Mölzer's circle as an "unjust border". Collaboration with the Italian neo-fascists is also regarded as "betrayal", on account of South Tyrol. A number of ITS politicians have had to appease their supporters and emphasise that they had joined forces with the "hereditary enemies" only for pragmatic reasons and to be better represented in the EP. The tense situation between the politicians and their base suggests to many observers of the extreme right wing parties that the ITS is only a technical grouping. A grouping of this kind is one in which the various combined parties do not really pursue common goals and seek only to enjoy the advantages of a parliamentary group. The formation of a technical grouping is forbidden by law. ITS - soon a thing of the past? So long this situation is not clarified the extreme right wing grouping Identity – Tradition – Sovereignty (ITS) will continue to exist. At the same time from the very start there has been a broad consensus in the EP, initiated by the head of the Social Democratic fraction Martin Schulz, that the ITS should be isolated. On 1 February 2007 none of its representatives was elected chairperson or deputy chair. The results of the European elections in Bulgaria and Romania in May 2007 are awaited with interest, for if this fraction loses only two members of parliament then it is history. One thing, however, became clear on 15 January: that the through the expansion of the EU Europe's extreme right wing has gained increased political influence. Sources: German: www.doew.at www.juedische.at www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,458056,00.html English: http://antisemitism.tau.ac.il/annual-report.htm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6262089.stm Alexander S. Emanuely, author and essayist was born in 1973. He studied politics and drama studies. He is co-editor of ContextXXI and writes contributions for the Jüdisches Echo and Jungle World. His novel for young people, Die Janitscharin, appeared in 2006. He is a scientific assistant in the psychosocial clinic ESRA and lives in Vienna. pictures
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