Word: europeanizing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...pandering to their views on immigration, though there are some siren voices," says Pickles. That hasn't stopped the Conservatives and other centrist parties from falling into bouts of my-policy-is-tougher-than-yours posturing. The Conservative Party also raised eyebrows with its choice of allies in the European Parliament: a new right-wing grouping chaired by Polish MEP Michal Kaminski, a former member of two hard-right parties. But Pickles says the key to winning the argument against extremism is to take it back to grassroots. "The only way to deal with [the far right] is by local...
...leader Jean-Marie Le Pen was runner-up in the 2002 French presidential elections. So in June the party might have expected to harness the perfect storm of rising unemployment, economic insecurity and the racial tensions that have disfigured French society to sail to a historic victory in the European elections. Instead, the FN's share of the vote tumbled, reducing its tally of seats from seven in 2004 to three. "Times of unhappiness tend to favor extremist parties," says Dominique Reynié, director of Paris-based think tank Foundation for Political Innovation. "This time people judged the crisis...
Localism matters, as Hénin-Beaumont illustrates. Just three weeks after the European elections, the former mining town, a traditional fiefdom of the French left, bucked the national trend to give the FN a convincing lead in the first round of municipal elections. The party was boosted by the presence on the trail of Marine Le Pen, the 40-year-old daughter of FN leader Jean-Marie and widely tipped as his successor. This thoroughly modern incarnation of the far right supports equal rights for women, is pro-choice on abortion, and talks of creating a "French Islam...
Just how powerful might the far right become? Such parties are now in a position to influence European legislation, though most advocate withdrawal from the European Union. Addressing a Jobbik rally last year, the BNP's Griffin invoked the memory of Hungary's 1956 revolution, suppressed by Stalinist troops. "Where is the power hunger and the corruption of the Soviet kleptocracy now? ... It is in Brussels," he said. "The European Union is a threat to all the free peoples of Europe...
...Italy's Lega Nord, which serves in Silvio Berlusconi's coalition government, chose to throw in its lot with a medley of Euro-skeptic parties, while the PVV refused to enter any alliance. Opponents would be unwise to take comfort from this apparent disunity. Far-right parties view the European Parliament primarily as a platform from which to launch runs for their domestic legislatures. Their expanding ambitions will bring new pressures: closer attention and the need to recruit more - and more plausible - candidates. They may yet overreach themselves. But hoping that they do is not a policy adequate...