Author: Lucie Sykorova, HlidaciPes.org, Czech republic
Right-wing extremists, nationalists, disinformationists and Russia supporters have grouped together in a new faction of the European Parliament called Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN). The profiles of each elected MEP include some truly bizarre stories. For example, a Polish candidate who only a few years ago warned against the Alternative for Germany party as “too anti-Polish” and pro-Russian is a member of the faction. Yet it is the AfD that is the main force behind the entire faction.
Apart from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), the Bulgarian nationalist party Vazrazhdane (Obroda) was the main initiator of the creation of a Europe of sovereign nations. Czech MEP Ivan David (SPD) is also a member of the faction.
The new faction includes 25 MEPs from eight member states who are mostly members of controversial parties. The main issues that unite these politicians are opposition to the EU’s current migration policy, the so-called Green Deal and military aid to Ukraine. However, a closer look at the individual members of the faction reveals that membership for a large number of them is a matter of pure pragmatism.
Under the AfD’s baton
With 14 MEPs, the German AfD occupies more than half of the seats in the group. The group has two co-chairs, René Aust of the AfD and Stanisław Tyszka of the Polish Confederation.
Among the AfD MEPs in the new group is Petr Bystroň, a former member of the German Bundestag with Czech roots. He, too, has long spoken out in favour of Russia and this year, moreover, he became one of the main figures in the case surrounding the Voice of Europe website, which, according to the Czech Security Information Service (BIS), was directed and financed by Russia and was intended to influence the atmosphere in various EU countries in the run-up to the European elections.
Some Czech and German media, citing intelligence sources, wrote that Bystroň was supposed to have received money from the Russians in cash or cryptocurrencies. German authorities subsequently launched an investigation into suspicions of corruption and money laundering. However, Bystroň’s election to the European Parliament gave him immunity.
The AfD was formerly a member of the Identity and Democracy (ID) group in the European Parliament, from which it was expelled in May following remarks by the leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) election candidate Maximilian Krah that not everyone who wore an SS uniform was necessarily a war criminal.
Krah’s assistant Jian Guo was arrested in April on charges of spying for the Chinese intelligence services. In the same month, a German court officially branded the AfD as suspected extremists. Maxmilian Krah was elected as an MEP even now, but he was not accepted into the ESN faction and thus remained non-attached.
Pro-Russian former journalist
The Bulgarian nationalist party Vazrazhdane (Revival) has three MEPs in the ESN faction. The most prominent face is undoubtedly former Bulgarian state radio journalist Petar Volgin, who, according to HlídacíPes.org, has been appointed spokesman for the ESN faction.
According to the Reuters Institute, Volgin is one of the three most successful Bulgarian journalists on social media. However, he has been spreading pro-Russian content on them, among other things, and has long been known for his pro-Russian views in his home country. In December 2023, he conducted an interview with Russian Ambassador Eleonora Mitrofanova, which was later taken off air. The Bulgarian Press Council SEM investigated Volgin’s broadcasts and noted elements of propaganda in his programmes.
The Revival Party also sent several of its MPs to a conference organised by Putin’s United Russia party in Moscow in February. Among other things, it plans to organise a referendum in Bulgaria against the adoption of the euro.
He warned against his current allies
Three of the six MEPs elected from Poland’s far-right Confederation party also became members of the ESN, which also gained the post of vice-president in the group. He is Stanislaw Tyszka, a lawyer and former member of the Polish parliament, where he switched between several political groups during one term.
Polish media point out that Tyszka himself warned against the AfD on social media in 2017: ‘AfD politicians are proud of German soldiers from the Second War and fully support Russia. The AfD is therefore dangerously anti-Polish,” he wrote at the time.
One member was recruited by the ESN faction from the Slovak Republic party, which is considered nationalist to neo-fascist. It believes that the EU should limit itself to purely economic cooperation. It also calls for withdrawal from NATO and regularly spreads pro-Russian views.
The Republic was formed by taking over and renaming the Voice of the People party after its founders left the People’s Party Our Slovakia of extremist Marian Kotleba. The Republic won two seats in the European elections, but only party leader Milan Uhrík was included in the ESN group.
Former Slovak MEP Milan Mazurek was also elected to the European Parliament on behalf of the Republic. He has been convicted in the past for racial vilification on the basis of anti-Roma statements. As a result, he lost his seat in parliament in September 2019, becoming the first Slovak MP to lose his position as a result of a criminal offence. The ESN faction refused to accept Mazurek, so he remained as an unaffiliated member.
French dissolution already before the first session
The ESN faction will also include one MEP from the far-right French party Reconquête (Reconquest). The party was founded in 2021 by the columnist Éric Zemmour. Politically, the party is even further to the right than Marine Le Pen’s National Association and Zemmour has been condemned several times for racist statements.
Four other Reconquête candidates were also elected to the European Parliament, but they fell out with Zemmour during France’s snap elections and were subsequently expelled from the party. It is not yet clear whether they will eventually join a faction or remain unaffiliated.
Lithuanian One Man Party
Another member of the ESN is the Lithuanian Union of People and Justice. It won one of Lithuania’s eleven seats in the European elections. The media describe the party as populist and Eurosceptic. Its leader and new MEP is Petras Grazulis, who has drawn attention to himself in the past mainly for homophobic acts.
“Petras Grazulis is one of the strangest phenomena in Lithuanian politics. He was elected to the Lithuanian parliament in 1996 and was a member until the end of December 2023, more than 25 years. He was then expelled from parliament when it was discovered that he had voted for another MP. Now he is not allowed to run for any elected office in Lithuania for ten years,” Justina Ilkeviciute, a journalist for Lithuanian Radio and Television (LRT), told WatchdogPes.org.
According to her, Grazulis’ political party – the Union of People and Justice – is not a serious player in Lithuania. In Lithuania, he is mainly seen as a clown who shouts slogans about the ‘gay invasion’ and ‘gendersim destroying the EU’, so he is mainly known for his opposition to LGBTQ+ rights.”
After his election to the European Parliament, Grazulis wanted to join the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group but was not accepted.
“Joining the ECR was a big surprise even in Lithuania, because Grazulis is no friend of Russia. He was also the only one from the ESN group who voted for the resolution on Ukraine at the first plenary session. Moreover, he is not fluent in English (to be honest, I don’t think he speaks English at all), so he might try to shout something about LGBT or genderism in the European Parliament, but that’s about it,” thinks Justina Ilkeviciute.
During the first plenary session of the European Parliament, Grazulis drew attention to himself by moving around the chamber in an uncoordinated manner and taking videos during his speeches on the election of the Commission President.
The party is over?
The Spanish party Se Acabó La Fiesta – SALF (translated as The Party is Over) was also originally supposed to become a member of the ESN, but in the end it remained, at least for the time being, outside the group and its three MEPs are not included.
The party declares itself “anti-establishment” and is led by 34-year-old influencer Luis Alvise Pérez. He is mainly active on the social network Telegram, where his channel has more than half a million followers. “90% of what Pérez spreads on social media is fake news,” Spanish journalist Lluís Tovar of Telecinco television told HlídacíPes.org.
Pérez was originally a member of the liberal Citizens party since 2017, but left the party at the end of 2019 after the party’s failure in the general elections. He then began to revolve around the far-right Vox party, which was in the Conservative Group (ECR) in the European Parliament last term and is now a member of Patriots for Europe.
But he eventually founded his own group, Se Acabó La Fiesta, at the end of April this year. The platform is not yet even registered as a political party. “It’s a social media phenomenon because the media didn’t even report on SALF during the campaign, basically ignoring it. Yet SALF managed to win three mandates. According to surveys, up to 80% of young men active on social networks voted for it,” Lluís Tovar points out.
The fact that three candidates from SALF made it to the European Parliament surprised him. The remaining two MEPs are unknown names, he says: “Pérez himself admitted before the elections that he didn’t even know the people on his list.” Luis Alvise Pérez clearly does not see his mandate in the European Parliament as a mission. He has reportedly already announced that he will resign as an MEP and run for prime minister as soon as parliamentary elections are called in Spain. The next elections in Spain should be in 2027.
