Advertise On EU-Digest

Annual Advertising Rates

12/17/17

EU Politics: Europe Far Right and Populists hails Trump, slams EU, Islam, migrants - Philip Heijmans

ar right leaders promised to build a new Europe without the EU, as they rallied against Islam and praised US President Donald Trump's hardline immigration policy at a meeting in Prague over the weekend.

Populist politicians from France, the UK, Poland, Austria and the Netherlands wrapped up their gathering on Sunday, held under the banner: "For a Europe of sovereign nations".

The conference was hosted by the Czech Republic's anti-Islam Freedom and Direct Democracy party, which won nearly 11 percent of the vote in October and is chaired by Tomio Okamura, a Czech-Japanese politician.

The meeting closed a year of far-right gains across Europe, as demonstrated most recently in Austria.

Members of the Freedom Party of Austria, who were present at the Prague conference, were lauded for having just entered the country's new coalition government.

The National Front's Marine Le Pen, who lost out on the French presidency earlier this year after reaching the final round of voting, said the development was "excellent news for Europe.

"These successes show that the nation states are the future, that the Europe of tomorrow is a Europe of the people," she said.

Along with Dutch Geert Wilders, who leads the Party for Freedom, Le Pen upped a call to unify opposition to the EU under the Europe of Nations and Freedom coalition (ENF) - the smallest group, launched in 2015, in the European Parliament.

Closing Europe's borders to asylum-seekers is one of the group's key ambitions.

Read More: Europe far right hails Trump, slams EU, Islam, migrants | Czech Republic News | Al Jazeera

No comments: