Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom

Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedoms
President	Louis Aliot[1]
Founded	2014 (2014)
Ideology	Nationalism Right-wing populism Euroscepticism Conservatism Souverainism
Political position	Right-wing to Far-right
European Parliament group	Europe of Nations and Freedom
Political foundation	Foundation for a Europe of Nations and Freedom
Website
www.menleuropa.eu
Politics of the European Union Political parties Elections

The Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom (French: Mouvement pour l’Europe des nations et des libertés), abbreviated to MENL or MENF, is an alliance of European political parties founded in 2014. Its political group in the European Parliament is Europe of Nations and Freedom.

History

In the aftermath of the European Parliament election, 2014, parties affiliated with the European Alliance for Freedom unsuccessfully attempted to form a political group in the European Parliament.^[2][3][4]

Later in 2014, they decided to create a new European-level structure, which became the Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom. The Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV) chose not to participate in this pan-European party, as it declined to be funded by the European Union.^[5] The Polish Congress of the New Right (KNP), initially claimed that it would be part of the new alliance, but was accused in a press release by the French National Front of spreading false claims in the Polish and Austrian media.^[6] Ultimately the KNP took part in the creation of the party's new parliamentary group as its former controversial leader Janusz Korwin-Mikke was evicted from the party to be replaced by Michal Marusik.

It was recognised by the European Parliament (EP) in 2015. Its maximum grant by the EP for this year is €1.170.746^[7] plus €621.677 for its affiliated political foundation, the Fondation pour une Europe des Nations et des Libertés.^[8]

On 16 June 2015, the Europe of Nations and Freedom parliamentary group was created in the European Parliament with members of the MENL (FN, FPÖ, LN, VB) as well as the PVV, Poland's KNP and a former member of UKIP, Janice Atkinson.

The 1st congress of the movement was held on 28 June 2015 in Perpignan, France gathering some MEPs from the National Front as well as a few of its local & national representatives members; the objective of this meeting was mainly about making the 1st year of action of the National Front's MEPs in review.^[9]

On 15 September 2015, the Flemish Vlaams Belang (VB) and the movement organized a colloquium dealing with sovereignty which took place in the Flemish Parliament with VB's leader Tom Van Grieken, MEP Gerolf Annemans, VB's member Barbara Pas and National Front's leader Marine Le Pen.^[10] All of the Flemish parties approved Marine Le Pen's visit at the Flemish Parliament although the speaker of the Flemish Parliament Jan Peumans (N-VA) decided not to be part of this colloquium.^[11]

On 24 October 2015, MENL's leader and vice-president of the National Front Louis Aliot met the current president of Fratelli d'Italia, Giorgia Meloni in Trieste for a conference on immigration.^[12]

Marine Le Pen praised SVP's victory during the 2015 Swiss election although the Swiss party does not have official links with the movement.^[13] The movement also launched an anti-immigration campaign in 2015 just like the SVP's campaign during Swiss referendum on immigration in 2014.

On 21 November 2015, MENL's think thank "Foundation for a Europe of Nations and Freedom" organized a colloquium ("L'euro, un échec inéluctable?") dealing with Euro and how it might be an inescapable failure. Jacques Sapir took part in this colloqium among others. The FENF, chaired by Gerolf Annemans, organized another colloquim on 2 April 2016 in Paris dealing with union representation and the development of professional organizations in France.^[14]

The third colloquium of the movement took place on 4 March 2016 in the Flemish Parliament with VB's leader Tom Van Grieken and PVV's leader Geert Wilders. This colloquim entitled "Freedom" ("Vrijheid") dealt with liberties in Europe and how they would be threatened by immigration from "countries with cultures which are fundamentally different [from the European one]".^[15]

The movement's member parties and allies met in July 2016 in Vienna, an event hosted by Austria's FPÖ. The French National Front, Matteo Salvini's Northern League, the AfD, Belgium's Vlaams Belang, the Dutch Party for Freedom were present among other independent politicians and smaller European parties.^[16]

According to Politico, the movement owed in 2016 the European Parliament 535,818€. The reasons given by Politico were the forbidden use of European grants by the MENL party to finance national political parties and referendum campaigns.^[17] The party strongly denied these allegations by saying that they just had to give the unused EU funds back to the European Parliament.^[18]

Member parties

The following national delegations are part of MENL:^[19]

Country	Party	European MPs	National MPs
Austria	Freedom Party of Austria	4 / 18	40 / 183
Belgium	Vlaams Belang[20]	1 / 21	3 / 150
France	National Front	23 / 74	2 / 577
Italy	Northern League	5 / 73	18 / 630
Czech Republic	Freedom and Direct Democracy	0 / 21	3 / 200

Other related parties

The Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV), the Polish Congress of the New Right (KNP) and the German Alternative for Germany (AfD), despite not being members of MENL, participate in its political group in the European Parliament, ENL.^[21]

MENL leaders also have public political relations of some kind with Brothers of Italy (FdI, Italy)^[22] and Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD, Czech Republic).^[23] The latter is now a full member of the pan-european party.

In February 2016, FPÖ's leader Heinz-Christian Strache was invited by the anti-Euro & anti-immigration party AfD and its leader Frauke Petry to their congress in Düsseldorf and the AfD also announced a cooperation pact with the FPÖ.^[24][25] In April 2016, AfD's vice-president Alexander Gauland also proposed an alliance with Marine Le Pen's National Front.^[26] Therefore, AfD's MEP Marcus Pretzell joined the Europe of Nations and Freedom group on April 30, 2016.

Former member parties

Among members of MENL's predecessor European Alliance for Freedom (EAF), the following parties did not join MENL:

• Citizens in Rage, Germany
• Order and Justice, Lithuania (joined ADDE instead)
• Sweden Democrats, Sweden (joined ADDE instead)

Structure

President

• Louis Aliot MEP (FN, France)

Members of the Bureau

• Marine Le Pen MEP (FN, France)
• Lorenzo Fontana MEP (LN, Italy)
• Nicolas Bay MEP (FN, France)
• Gerolf Annemans MEP (Vlaams Belang, Belgium)

Treasurer

• Harald Vilimsky MEP (FPÖ, Austria)

References

Pan-European political organisations
Political parties recognised by the EU	Current Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe Alliance for Peace and Freedom Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party Europeans United for Democracy European Alliance for Freedom Alliance of European National Movements European Christian Political Movement European Democratic Party European Free Alliance European Green Party European People's Party Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom Movement for a Europe of Liberties and Democracy Party of European Socialists Party of the European Left Defunct Alliance for Europe of the Nations Alliance of Independent Democrats in Europe Libertas
Political parties not recognised by the EU	Current Europe – Democracy – Esperanto European Federalist Party European Pirate Party European Party for Individual Liberty Initiative of Communist and Workers' Parties Defunct European National Front Europe United Party Movement for European Reform Newropeans
Other confederations of national parties	Current European Anti-Capitalist Left Liberal South East European Network Nordic Green Left Alliance Defunct Euronat Platform for Transparency European Democrat Union
National parties by European organisation Political groups of the European Parliament Political foundations at European level European parliamentary elections European Council composition by party Politics portal