Centre aims to change attitudes towards ethnic minorities

Date: 05/11/1998

By Simon Coss

THE European Parliament, an institution which is supposed to epitomise the ideal of cross-cultural integration within the EU, currently counts more than 30 right-wing extremists among its members.

These include MEPs representing the French National Front, the Flemish Belgian Vlaams Blok, the French Belgian National Front, Austria's Freedom Party and the Italian National Alliance.

The most famous member of this group is undoubtedly the leader of the French National Front Jean-Marie le Pen. The veteran extremist hit the headlines once again last month when MEPs voted to lift his parliamentary immunity .

In total, there are 31 representatives of parties which advocate what most observers believe are racist policies on immigration and relations with ethnic minorities in their respective countries. They are also less than supportive of the whole ideal of European integration.

The extremists are currently all 'non-attached' members, which means that they belong to no political group.

However, if they ever decided to band together, only the Parliament's three largest political groupings º- the European Socialists, The European People's Party and the European Liberal Democratic and Reform Party - would have more members.

“There are enough of them technically to form a group, but thankfully they never seem to be able to agree with each other,” says British Labour MEP Glynn Ford, a long-time campaigner against the type of racist policies advocated by the Parliament's extreme-right.

Ford is very concerned about the presence of the extremists in the Parliament, but argues that there is only a limited amount he and his colleagues in the main-stream political groups can do to minimise their influence in the institution.

“We try to make sure that we block them politically and we do not allow any of these people to sign any joint resolutions, but we cannot ban people from being elected,” he explains.

Ford argues that up until now this policy of shunning the extremists seems to have worked. But he is concerned about the prospect that recent developments in French politics could be repeated at European level. In last summer's French regional elections, some members of traditional right-wing parties - including Jacques Blanc, the former president of the EU's Committee of the Regions - entered into electoral pacts with the National Front.

However, Ford does not feel it would be particularly useful to ban extremist parties in the Parliament. “They would just change their names,” he argues.

He feels the best way forward is to complete a code of conduct for political parties with seats in the institution. Any party not willing to sign the code would find themselves politically isolated, he explains. “We need to make them the political pariahs of the Parliament,” he insists.