Bulgaria, Romania Helped Unite Xenophobes, Homophobes - The Independent

Politics » BULGARIA IN EU | January 16, 2007, Tuesday // 00:00
Bulgaria: Bulgaria, Romania Helped Unite Xenophobes, Homophobes - The Independent Bulgaria's scandalous MEP Dimitar Stoyanov is expected to be a leading light of the far-right formation in the European Parliament ???Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty Group???. Photo by Yuliana Nikolova (Sofia Photo Agency)

"Gypsy-haters, holocaust-deniers, xenophobes, homophobes, anti-semites" - this is the title of an article in the British Independent newspaper on EU's new political force, formed thanks to Bulgarian nationalists.

The admission of Romania and Bulgaria in January of this year brought in enough far-right MEPs to form a bloc, after years of struggle by the mainstream politicians to contain the threat, the Independent comments.

Amid formal protests and jeers in the Strasbourg Parliament, 20 MEPs yesterday signed up to the new formation called Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty (ITS). As a formal group, they are entitled to up to EUR 1 M in central funding. It is led by Bruno Gollnisch of France's National Front, who is awaiting a court verdict on charges of Holocaust denial.

The article pays special attention to one Bulgarian member of the ultra-nationalists group - Dimitar Stoyanov.

"Yesterday he attacked the "Jewish establishment" and accused Roma parents of selling 12-year-olds into prostitution.

Even the ringtone of Mr Stoyanov's phone points to his hardline politics. It features a former Bulgarian national anthem which, he says, "tells of the atrocities of the Turkish army in the second Balkan war, how the rivers were flowing with blood and the widows weeping, and urges people to fight for Bulgaria".

A previous far-right grouping in the European Parliament faltered in the 1980s and rival MEPs predict that ITS will have a limited impact on the Strasbourg assembly.

Martin Schulz, leader of the socialist group which is the second-largest in the Parliament, appealed to other MEPs to unite to prevent ITS from securing senior positions in Strasbourg. He said: "We must not abandon this Parliament, which symbolises the integration of Europe, to those who deny all European values."

Prominent members of the far-right alliance include Jean-Marie Le Pen, veteran member of the French National Front, who shocked Europe by reaching the second stage of the last French presidential elections, Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of Benito Mussolini, Frank Vanhecke, leader of Belgium's separatist Flemish nationalist party, Vlaams Belang, and Andreas Molzer, a former aide to the Austrian far-right leader, Jorg Haider.

Under the Parliament's rules a formal grouping requires 20 MEPs from at least six countries. That requirement was reached only after Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU this month.

As MEPs converged on Strasbourg, Stoyanov, who at 23 is the Parliament's youngest member, claimed the ITS had crossed a threshold of power. "We will be able to table amendments," said Stoyanov. "We will have longer speaking time in the plenary sessions and, eventually, we will win chairman, or deputy chairman, positions on committees." Stoyanov, of Bulgaria's Ataka party, denied being anti-Semitic but said he opposed the " Jewish establishment" which used ordinary Jewish people "like pawns" .

In the parliamentary chamber Gollnisch claimed that the new group " will speak on behalf of 23 million Europeans who would not be represented without us".

He added: "We will be the Parliament's conscience. We will be vigilant defenders of the peoples and nations of Europe who want our continent and civilisation to be great."

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