A nationalist political grouping within the European Parliament (EP) launched on Wednesday in Brussels, consisting of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) MEPs alongside newly arrived delegations from Eastern Europe, including the Polish Konfederacja.
Long theorised as a prospective national conservative voice in the EP, the Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) has met the parliamentary requirements of 23 MEPs from seven different member states. Its delegates gathered in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss the party’s constitution and the allocation of key positions.
The party group has successfully registered with parliamentary authorities and is currently in negotiations to bridge tensions between strong-willed MEPs representing nationalist parties from different member states. On Wednesday evening, AfD MEP René Aust was named president of the group. The ESN is expected to formally premiere its party constitution and reveal other key leadership positions at a meeting in the European Parliament next week.
ESN is billed as a radical alternative to the existing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) of Giorgia Meloni and the recently formed Patriots for Europe. László Toroczkai, the leader of Mi Hazánk—the Hungarian nationalists inside ESN—declared that the group’s launch showed:
We don’t want to negotiate with Europe’s enemies; we don’t want to get along with them, but we want to defeat them upon our arrival in Brussels on Wednesday.
The new party is reported to have secured the backing of up to nine nationalist parties across the EU, including the Polish Konfederacja, the Czech SPD, the Bulgarian Revival Party, and one Reconquête MEP, Sarah Knafo.
Czech nationalist MEP Tomio Okamura outlined that the ESN agenda would be “against the Green Deal, against migration, and… also against Islamisation” in a media interview last week. At the time, sources close to the nascent EP grouping said that it had already secured 25 MEPs and would likely gain more during the coming days and weeks.
