Parliament accused of 'Mugabe democracy' following rule change

STRASBOURG: Eurosceptic MEPs have cried foul after parliament voted in favour of changes to the way that political groups are formed.

The vote on Wednesday came after an acrimonious debate on Monday night which saw the French National Front join forces with the Flemish nationalists and British eurosceptics to denounce the proposals put forward by UK Socialist Richard Corbett.

Corbett’s proposals will see major changes to the way that political groups are formed in the European parliament, bringing it into line with national parliaments across Europe, according to the UK MEP.

But his suggestion that political groups should comprise members from at least one quarter of the member states (compared to one fifth at present) and that the minimum number of members should be 30 (compared to the current 20) led to cries of discrimination.

“This is Mugabe democracy,” said Frank Vanhecke of Belgian nationalist party Vlaams Belang. “The eurosceptic right wing is effectively being muzzled.”

Last year the ITS group formed by the eurosceptics and nationalists led to an outcry that taxpayers’ money was being used to support the activities of politicians whose views could be considered anti-European at best and racist at worst.

The group collapsed after five Bulgarian members walked out, taking it below the 20 member threshold.

Corbett’s proposal to increase that threshold would effectively prevent any chance of a similar group being formed in the future, critics say.

It would also lead to two current groups – UEN and IndDem – also having to be dissolved because of a lack of members, although this will not happen unless they fail to recruit more members after next year’s European elections, when the new rules will come into force.

Vanhecke accused Corbett of being a “lapdog of the PC eurocrats”, while British eurosceptic Dan Hannan said that the report backed by parliament was “illegal” as it bore, in his opinion, little or no resemblance to the report originally rejected at the committee level.

In the end, MEPs backed a more modest amendment from the main political group leaders to increase the minimum number of members to 25 rather than 30, a compromise welcomed by Corbett.

“I have rarely heard such rubbish in this house,” Corbett said in response to the suggestions that his reforms were targeted squarely at the eurosceptics.

“They will not censor anyone, not remove anyone’s right to act.”

“They are just about the threshold for forming political groups, and the consequent impact that has on European taxpayers’ money.”

He also noted that one former member of the ITS group had put forward an alternative amendment recognising that the threshold was too low and should be set at 22.

“Is there any real difference between their figure of 22 and the 25 that we have agreed?” he asked.

Hannan, a former EPP-ED member expelled from the group for allegedly comparing parliament to Nazi Germany earlier this year, said that Corbett’s proposals reflected the “fear” of euroscepticism.

“Why are you so frightened of eurosceptics?” he asked. “You are afraid of the increasing euroscepticism among European citizens, and you are taking it out on us, their visible spokesmen in parliament, because you dare not do so to them.”

But not all the opposition to Corbett’s proposals came from the right wing members.

UK Liberal MEP Andrew Duff said that the changes would affect the good functioning of parliament.

“The Liberal group is a reformist group: we want to change the parliament so that it becomes the place where post-national democratic politics takes shape. I simply do not accept that the existence of seven groups causes a particular problem for this parliament.”

“Lessons drawn from national parliaments are limited: here we should reflect the more complex and wider spread of opinion from 27 countries. In fact, it is critical at this delicate phase of European integration that all sorts of minority opinion has the chance to organise itself in an articulate way in the assembly.”

Duff added that the rule changes could backfire on its main authors, the EPP and PSE groups. “If we close small groups, their members will be forced to join a larger group, thereby adding to the incoherence of those groups, or will swell the ranks of the non-affiliated,” he said.

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