Home Politics German far-right leader: Bannon’s Europe plan will fail

BERLIN — Plans to forge a united right-wing populist movement led by Steve Bannon ahead of next year’s European Parliament election “will not succeed,” according to the co-leader of Germany’s far-right party.

Bannon, a former adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, said last month he intends to set up a Brussels-based foundation, The Movement, to advise and coordinate the continent’s various right-wing parties and political groups ahead of the 2019 Europe-wide ballot.

But his scheme “will not succeed,” as the “interests of the anti-establishment parties in Europe are quite different,” Alexander Gauland, who leads Alternative for Germany (AfD), said in an interview with the Funke media group of newspapers in Germany published Saturday.

“I do not see any great opportunities for cooperation,” said Gauland. “We’re not in America.”

Gauland’s party — which is part of the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group in the European assembly, alongside UKIP and Italy’s 5Stars — takes a hardline approach to immigration and Islam like a number of its far-right peers across the Continent, but diverges on other issues such as economic policy and EU membership.

The far-right party hit a new high in polls earlier this month, with 17 percent of support compared with 29 percent for Angela Merkel’s ruling conservative bloc.

Other right-wing political figures have also pushed back against Bannon’s scheme to push an anti-establishment, Eurosketpic agenda ahead of the election.

“Bannon is American and has no place in a European political party,” Jérôme Rivière, a member of France’s far-right National Rally has said. “We reject any supra-national entity and are not participating in the creation of anything with Bannon.”

Gauland acknowledged that AfD co-leader Alice Weidel had met Bannon once, but insisted cooperation with other right-wing parties takes place on a bilateral basis.


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