10 January 2006
A new extreme-right parliamentary group is expected to be launched at next week's plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Under the rules, a parliamentary group must include at least 19 parliamentarians from five different EU member states. The number of members of the European Parliament has been boosted to 785 since the entry of Bulgaria and Romania into the EU on 1 January. The extreme-right group will bring together around 20 MEPs from at least six countries and is expected to include seven French, including National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter Marine, Dimitar Stoyanov, a member from Bulgaria's extreme Ataka party, which campaigns against Gypsies and Turks, and five an anti-Semitic Romanian party. In December, the latter's president Corneliu Vadim Tudor was accused of xenophobia and anti-Semitism. Other possible members include Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of the Italian former fascist leader Benito, the ultra-Catholic League of Polish Families, two independent members, Italy's Luca Romagnoli and Britain's Ashley Mote, as well as MEPs from the far-right Belgian Vlaams Belang.
With the establishment of a formal group, the extreme right will benefit from greater EU funding. Bruno Gollnisch, a French MEP and deputy leader of Le Pen's National Front party, is likely to lead the new group, expected to be named either "Europe of the Fatherlands" or "Identity, Sovereignty, Tradition". Gollnisch is waiting for a court verdict in France on charges of questioning the Nazi death camp gas chambers. He was charged with "disputing crimes against humanity" over comments he made more than two years ago about the Shoah.
