The Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) group in the European Parliament, headed by UKIP leader Nigel Farage, has been disbanded following the defection of a Latvian MEP.<\/p>\n
The EFDD has existed for three months, including the August break.<\/p>\n
If the EFDD can find a new MEP from a country not already in the group, it could re-form. The UK, the Czech Republic, Italy, France, Lithuania and Sweden are already represented in the group.<\/p>\n
If the group is unable to re-form it could create a vacuum for Le Pen to restart her efforts to create a\u00a0group, which she had planned to name the the \u2018European Alliance for Freedom\u2019.<\/p>\n
Other groups in the Parliament welcomed the development. Manfred Weber, the leader of the centre-right European Peoples Party (EPP), called it \u201cthe first defeat for Eurosceptics\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the EFDD group did not return calls for comment. All staff working for the EFDD group will lose their jobs unless the group can re-form.<\/p>\n
Parliamentary groups must have at least 25 MEPs from seven different member states in order to be officially recognised by the Parliament. Iveta Grigule was the only Latvian MEP in the group, and her departure means that the EFDD does not have representation from enough member states. The group\u2019s dissolution was officially announced today at a meeting of the conference of presidents (the group leaders).<\/p>\n
The group was formed by UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Farage in 2009 under the name Europe of Freedom and Democracy. Most of its MEPs came from UKIP, with a handful from six other countries. It managed to stay intact for the full 2009-14 term.<\/p>\n
Facing competition from Marine Le Pen\u2019s efforts to create a new right-wing group in the Parliament, UKIP joined forces with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement in Italy and changed the group\u2019s name, adding the word \u2018direct\u2019. In the new configuration, the 17 Italian MEPs shared the spotlight with UKIP\u2019s 24 MEPs, and it is now co-led by Farage and Five Star MEP David Borrelli.<\/p>\n
Grigule\u2019s office said they were not yet aware of the reason for the defection. It may be related to the government-formation process in Latvia. Grigule is from the Union of Greens and Farmers party and there are ongoing talks about who is joining the government. The EFDD is seen as being pro-Putin and her membership in it may not have been palatable in a domestic context.<\/p>\n
Learn more about the Five Star \u2013 UKIP alliance in this video interview with MEP Fabio Massimo Castaldo.<\/p>\n
\u201cRadicals and populists are utterly divided,\u201d he said on Twitter. \u201cNo constructive work for citizens. Good that EFDD is no longer playing an official role.\u201d<\/p>\n
Catherine Bearder, the one British Liberal Democrats MEP left in the European Parliament after the party lost 10 seats in this year\u2019s election, said it was \u201cnot surprising that UKIP has lost friends and alienated people in the European Parliament.\u201d She said the development will make Farage a backbench MEP in the European Parliament, much like Douglas Carswell, who for the first time won a seat for UKIP in the British Parliament last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust like his new MP, Nigel Farage will now have to shout from the back benches \u2013 that is if he actually bothers to turn up,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Source: European Voice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) group in the European Parliament, headed by UKIP leader Nigel Farage, has been disbanded following the defection of a Latvian MEP. The EFDD has existed for three months, including the August break. If the EFDD can find a new MEP from a country not already in the … Continue reading “Farage\u2019s EFDD group collapses”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,3],"tags":[10298,9298,2821,8968,4456,67],"class_list":["post-16443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-europe-of-freedom-and-direct-democracy-efdd-group","tag-european-alliance-for-freedom","tag-marine-le-pen","tag-nigel-farage","tag-ukip","tag-vladimir-putin"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16443"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16444,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16443\/revisions\/16444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}