Croatia’s anti-establishment opposition Zivi Zid party presented on Sunday in Zagreb a joint programme of a new group of European populist parties which will join forces for the upcoming European Parliament election in May, with the party leader, Ivan Vilibor Sincic, saying this new generation of politicians would build a new, better Europe.
The new bloc is so far made up of five European parties – Croatia’s Zivi Zid party, Poland’s Kukiz ‘15, Finland’s Liike Nyt, Greece’s Akkel, and led by Italy’s Five Star Movement.
Leader of the Five Star Movement and Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister, Luigi Di Maio, was present at Sunday’s presentation, along with Pawel Kukiz from Kukiz ‘15 and Evangellos Tsiompanidis from Akkel.
“This European election will not be won the same way as previous ones, where the old parties got the majority of votes. This will be a completely different situation, and our message is one of hope – things can be different than what they are in Europe today,” said Di Maio.
Apart from the Five Star Movement, which has 12 MEPs, none of the parties in the new bloc currently have representatives in the European Parliament.
The Five Star Movement is currently part of the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) group, which holds 41 out of the Parliament’s 751 seats. The group will effectively cease to exist after Britain’s UKIP, also a member, leaves the Parliament after Brexit.
In order for a new parliamentary group to be formed, it is necessary to have a quorum of 25 MEPs from seven EU countries.
“In the next few weeks, two more political parties will join us and we will form a club which will not be close to either the extreme right, or the traditional parties which have turned Europe into the Europe of banks,” Di Maio told N1 after the presentation.
Presenting the joint manifest, which was first officially presented in Rome in February this year, Zivi Zid’s Sincic said this was not a definitive document, and would be revised later as more parties join the bloc.
In the ten points of the document, the group is advocating direct democracy, as well as cooperation between European countries, with emphasis on respect for cultural differences and refusal of the concept of centralisation. The group also wants a radical change of the European institutions, saying they wanted a European Parliament which is not subordinate to the European Commission.
“We want to change the entire concept of European politics, without false divisions into left and right and conflicts over manufactured ideological divisions,” Sincic said.
The group’s project of Transparent Europe is another point in the manifest, in which they advocate the fight against corruption and organised crime, protection of whistle-blowers, and more transparency from all MEPs.
They want to simplify the leaving procedure for all the members who no longer wish to be part of the European Union, as well allow each member country to decide on whether they wish to join the euro zone or not. They will also seek the protection of real economy and limiting the influence of international corporations and banks.
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