French Right Wing Leader to Co-Chair New Eurosceptic Party Within European Parliament

Several leaders of right and far-right European political parties, including Marine Le Pen, the president of the French Front National (FN), and Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch PVV, announced on Tuesday morning during a press conference that they were creating a new parliamentary party within the European Parliament, bringing together members of parliament from seven different parties. This group will be called "Europe of Nations and Freedoms."

This group will be cochaired by Marine Le Pen and Marcel de Graaff, the Dutch MEP of the Party for Freedom (PVV). The list of 36 European member parliamentarians in the party was confirmed by the president of the Parliament, reported a journalist from Le Monde. Those elected officials are French (FN), Dutch (PVV), Austrian (Freedom Party, FPO), Italian (Lega Nord), Belgian (Vlaams Belang), British (ex-UKIP), and Polish (Congress of the New Right, KNP).

Louis Aliot, the vice president of the French Front National and European member of parliament who is also a member of the Europe of Nations and Freedoms group, told VICE News Tuesday that he was pleased for "far longer than the group would let me talk."

"Now we can propose amendments, or committee chairs," he said, adding that the group may not have declared a specific policy line yet, but that it will tackle "overhauling the Euro and the foundations of the European Union."

The Polish and British members of parliament were the catalysts for bringing the Europe of Nations and Freedoms group into being at last. To establish a parliamentary party in the European Parliament, its members must come from at least a quarter of the EU's countries, which currently means seven countries. After the 2014 European elections, right wing countries from only five countries came together to establish "an organization" of parties. These longtime allies, in fact, already had the 25 parliamentarians needed to establish a Parliamentary party.

The new British member, Janice Atkinson, joined after leaving the UKIP, Nigel Farage's party which had rejected all ties with the Front National. As for the two new Polish party members, Michal Marusik and Stanislaw Zóltek, their party — the KNP — recently ousted their controversial leader, Janusz Korwin-Mikke, known for his revisionist and sexist views.

Several European members of parliament from the Front Nationale are not on the list of parliamentarians the group presented to Parliament. The most notable absence is that of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the recently-suspended honorary president of the Front National.

"I wasn't asked when I was elected along with four other MEPs on my list," Le Pen said to the AFP this Tuesday. "I don't know where all this scorn is coming from."

The new British MEP, Janice Atkinson, said, according to Euractiv, that "excluding Jean-Marie Le Pen from the National Front made things far easier."

Related: France's Far-Right Family Implodes as National Front Founder Jean-Marie Le Pen Disowns His Daughter

These seven parties now have all the rights of a European Parliament party. In particular, they may speak on all subjects brought up in plenary sessions, contribute to agendas, propose reporters for each committee or add motions and amendments to the texts of laws under discussion. They may also propose a candidate for the Parliament's president and its 20 committees and 2 subcommittees.

Finally, the Europe of Nations and Freedoms group may now have an administrative office with a budget provided by the Parliament and therefore may establish premises and hire assistants. In 2014, the Euractiv site calculated that with 38 Members of parliament (out of 751 total members of the European Parliament) this potential party could receive nearly 4.5 million euros additionally annually, nearly twice their current total resources.

This party's policy line wasn't specified during the press conference this Tuesday.

"We've just created the party, we now have to come to agreement," said Marine Le Pen.

Follow Matthieu Jublin on Twitter: @MatthieuJublin

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