Europa United Euro election guide – Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF)

In the build up to the European Elections, we have been presenting information articles on each of the main groups and parties that make up the European Parliament. This is designed to help you find out as much information on who is seeking your vote . In this edition, we learn about the group known as the Europe of Nations and Freedom or ENF.

We want a Europe of sovereign states. We want a free Europe. We want a Europe that respects national individuality and national identity

Its Co-Presidents, Nicolas Bay, of France’s National Rally, and Marcel de Graaff of the Netherlands’ Party for Freedom, are supported by seven Vice-Presidents and a Secretariat. The Group’s 35 MEPs are drawn from nine Parties in eight of the EU’s 28 member states. 15 of the Group’s 35 MEPs are from the National Rally

The Group’s member Parties are predominantly Right – far-right. While they champion correspondingly right-with ideologies, the political aims of the Group lie within a relatively narrow band, focussing on issues of national, rather than European, interests.

Views and Priorities

The ENF prioritises sovereignty of nation states, with attendant rights to defend their interests, identity and freedom of individual citizens.

Ideologies
• Anti-immigration
• Euroscepticism
• Far right politics 
• Nationalism 
• Right-Wing Politics
• Right-wing populism

Co-Presidents
Marcel de Graaff – Netherlands
Nicolas Bay – France

Vice-Presidents
Geroff Annemans – Belgium
Janice Atkinson – UK
Michal Marusik – Poland
Marcus Pretzell – Germany
Harald Vilimsky – Austria
Mara Bizzotto – Italy
Gilles Lebreton – France

The ENF’s member Parties and individual MEPs avow conformity with democratic principles and the charter of fundamental rights, and reject any past, present or future affiliation, connection or sympathy with any authoritarian or totalitarian project.

The Group emphasises the sovereignty of states and their citizens and cooperation between nations, and therefore reject any policy designed to create a supra-state or supra-national model. A fundamental and unifying principle of the Group is opposition to any to any transfer of national sovereignty to supranational bodies and /or European Institutions.

The Group’s Parties and individual MEPs recognize each other’s right to defend their specific unique economic, social, cultural and territorial models. The ENF Group seeks to preserve the diversity of the political projects of its members.

The Group and its MEPs seek to preserve the identity of citizens and nations of Europe according to the specific characteristics of each. The right to control and regulate immigration is thus a fundamental principle shared by the Members of the ENF Group.

Member Parties and individual MEPs seek to defend individual freedom and emphasise the particular importance of protecting freedom of speech including digital freedom, which they believe is increasingly in jeopardy.

Membership

The Right – far right credentials of the ENF are manifest in its ideologies, which are anti-immigration, Euro-scepticism, nationalism, right-wing and far-right politics and right-wing populism.

This is shown in the graph, which compares the political positions of the Group’s member parties and the ideologies of each. The left-hand bar shows Party-level political positions, while the right-hand bar looks deeper, to the sets of ideologies championed by Parties within the Group. Both are weighted by the number of MEPs representing them.

In the left-hand bar, we see that the dominant Party-level position is Right – Far-right, due mainly to the French National rally’s 15 MEPs, together with Italy’s Lega Nord, with six Eps and four smaller parties, with ten MEPs between them. Two Parties, with three MEPs between them are Right-wing, and one of the Group’s MEPs is Independent.

Now look at the right-hand bar, which captures the ideologies espoused by those Parties. The complexion of this bar is slightly more varied, though still strongly Right – Far right, due to anti-immigration, national conservatism, right-wing populism, as well as various brands of nationalism, by eight of its member Parties, including the National Rally and Lega Nord. Accompanying this are Right-wing ideologies such as protectionism and economic nationalism, championed by the National Rally and France’s Navy-Blue Rally. The main Far-right ideologies are anti-Islam and hard Euro-scepticism.

The ENF office addresses is:

European Parliament
Office ATR 00L034,
Rue Wiertz 60
1047 Bruxelles, Belgique.

32 (0)2 28 42256 and Press: +32 (0)2 28 30521

This information article was compiled by Frances Cowell and published in conjunction with the #thistimeimvoting campaign.