Abstract
The transnational links of the populist nationalist party family have followed a marginal and meandering course in the last three decades. This chapter describes how populist nationalist parties lagged behind all party families in their attempts of transnational party cooperation. The increasing electoral success of populist nationalist parties in 2009 and 2014 European elections makes the analysis of a transnational party coordination in the European arena more relevant. The fragmentation of transnational party coordination has persisted despite their political representation in the European parliament that has more than doubled since the 1980s. Despite the Euroscepticism shared by these parties, and the benefits parties gained from the formation of political groups in the form of institutional, material and symbolic resources, transnational party coordination is a challenging political endeavor and new political groups and parties reproduce the previous fragmentation.
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Notes
- 1.
Lega Nord was one of the few political parties that moved rather freely across political groups over the past two decades.
- 2.
These include the differences between the Republikaner and MSI on the question of the South Tyrol, disagreements between the Romanian PRM and the Bulgarian Ataka, the differences between the Flemish VB and the Walloon FN prevented long-standing agreements.
- 3.
- 4.
The internationalist views of the Front National involved its contacts with likeminded parties in the European parliament, including the creation of a European alliance that took form in the late 1990s. The foundation of Euronat in 1997 in a FN congress in Strasbourg initiated its expansion in Western and Eastern Europe (Camus 2016; Lebourg 2016). Euronat promoted the alliances of populist nationalist parties yet with very limited results.
- 5.
- 6.
Multiple factors led to the failure of the group, such as the disputes between the German Republikaner and the Italian MSI over the status of South Tyrol, and the contested leadership of Le Pen (Hafez 2014).
- 7.
The LNNK later merged with All for Latvia in the National Alliance in 2011, gained a seat in the EP, and joined the ECR group in 2009.
- 8.
After a controversy with the Italian minister Roberto Calderoli for wearing a T-shirt depicting one of the Danish Muslim Cartoons.
- 9.
The political clash between the UKIP and the Lega Nord did not prevent a renewed alliance of UKIP-LN after the 2009 European elections.
- 10.
The expectations for the creation of a transnational European populist party family were fulfilled yet for a short period of time (Mudde 2007).
- 11.
Alessandra Mussolini described Romanians as ‘habitual lawbreakers’. Mussolini told the Romanian newspaper Cotidianul on Nov. 2, 2007, that law-breaking had become ‘a way of life for (ethnic) Romanians going to Italy who cannot make a living by honest work’.
- 12.
- 13.
Members of the movement cast an electronic vote on the issue of joining the UKIP in the European parliament.
- 14.
Many criticisms were made within the Conservative group. The British conservatives were divided over the issue.
- 15.
Between the publication of the results of the 2014 European elections and June 23th midnight—not even a month—political parties dedicated their efforts to political coordination. Exceptionally, groups can be formed during the term of the European parliament, such as the formation of Independence, Tradition and Sovereignty in 2007, but this is very unusual.
- 16.
Joele Bergeron was expelled from the party two days after the 2014 European elections for her statements on granting voting rights to migrants in local elections.
- 17.
The process of coordination was precarious and was early tested when the Latvian MEP left the political group for the European people party. A single non-attached MEP from the Polish KPN was able to rescue the EFDD from dissolution soon after its creation.
- 18.
LN in the 2009 parliament had MEPs both in the EFD and the non-attached (Mario Borghezio).
- 19.
Matteo Salvini’s LN was elected as MEP, both in 2009 and 2014, and he is the federal secretary of his party, and before him Bossi did. Timo Soini’s Finns was elected to the 2009 European parliament and became an MEP until he was elected to the Finnish parliament in 2011. Gerolf Annemans from Flemish Interest, elected as MEP in 2014, was also the secretary general of the party (2012–2014) as was the case with Frank Vanhecke (2009–2014). Annemans was then substituted by Tom Van Grieken after the electoral defeat of 2014 regional, general and European elections. The ex-leader of the KPN’s, Janusz Korwin-Mikke, also sits in the European parliament.
- 20.
Since 2002, the European Union forbids MEPs from holding a dual mandate. In many cases, domestic electoral systems limit the chances of party leaders to gain representation in national institutions. For example, Farage had unsuccessfully contested British parliamentary elections for the UKIP five times—both before and after—his first election in 1999 to the EP. The PR system for EP elections offers political opportunities to obtain representation for those facing majoritarian systems at the domestic level. Other dual mandates are compatible; Marine Le Pen was also elected to the Regional Assembly of Nord-Pas-de-Calais in 2010.
- 21.
The European Alliance for Freedom, under the leadership of Marine Le Pen since 2011, has refused to ally with other parties, mainly from Eastern Europe, with anti-Semitic and racist tones such as the Hungarian Jobbik . Interestingly, Jobbik was previously an ally from 2005 onward.
- 22.
The Austrian FPO leader’s Mölzer remarks at a roundtable comparing European dictatorship with the Third Reich and calling the EU a ‘negroconglomerate’ opened up a crisis solved with his replacement by Harald Vilimsky in April.
- 23.
The Front National was incapable of dispensing with the figures associated with the political stigma of the party, Jean Marie Le Pen and Bruno Gollnish in the 2014 European elections. Le Pen, age 86, did not prevent the Front National from obtaining a sound victory in the 2014 European elections, but his political figure—like that of Bruno Gollnish—contributed to the continuance of the political stigma of the Front National in Europe. The brawl between Marine Le Pen and her father over the latter’s statements on the holocaust and the war ended this time with his suspension as member of the FN in August 2015.
- 24.
For this quote see, ITV News 15 November 2013, but it is a very common remark in his interviews with the press.
- 25.
The presence of the BNP in the British party system occupied the extreme right political spectrum. The BNP was a former ally of the French FN in Euronat.
- 26.
The UKIP also faced accusations of anti-Semitism . In the month of October 2014, UKIP’s MEP Jane Collin’s retweeting an Anti-Semitic blog was defended by her party as an ‘error of judgment’ that ended with her apologies.
- 27.
The EFDD constitution clearly states ‘Agreeing on embodying these principles in its proceedings, the Group respects the freedom of its delegations and Members to vote as they see fit’ (EFDD webpage European parliament).
- 28.
Both Jean Marie Le Pen and Bruno Gollnish remained with the non-attached .
- 29.
Membership in political groups in the European parliament does not involve party membership in specific Europarties. Vlaams’ Belang’s MEP Frank Vanhecke belonged to the MELD, while Philip Claeys joined the EAF in the seventh term.
- 30.
None of these Europarties presented candidates for the presidency of the European Commission for the 2014 European elections.
- 31.
‘We are doing it precisely so we can liberate some of that money that would otherwise go to integrationist organisations’, Helmer on BBC News December 15th.
- 32.
Gerrard Batten and Tim Congdon rejected the decision to form a Europarty.
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Gómez-Reino, M. (2018). Transnational Party Coordination Among Populist Nationalist Parties. In: Nationalisms in the European Arena . Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65951-0_6
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