Sixteen European Parties Sign Declaration Against More EU Power

Sixteen European “patriotic” political parties have signed a statement to emphasize that the European Union should not take over too much national sovereignty.

 

Signatories include Fidesz of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the French Rassemblement National of Marine Le Pen and the Dutch party JA21 of Joost Eerdmans.

The statement responds to the Conference on the Future of Europe, which kicked off in May. This initiative should allow EU citizens to participate in discussions about what the European Union should look like. With an online platform and all kinds of brainstorming sessions and meetings, this Europe-wide social debate is a plan by French President Emmanuel Macron.

The recommendations arising from the Conference should be discussed by the Member States. The signatories to the statement fear that the Conference will become “a unilateral exercise”, leading to more power for the EU.

“The limits of EU competencies should follow the principle of subsidiarity: all competencies that have not been explicitly transferred to the EU and that the EU cannot get better implement will remain with the Member States,” the statement said.

According to them, the French Rassemblement National writes that the EU wants to take more and more self-determination rights from states. The parties emphasized that they support cooperation between countries, but not by “merging” them.

For the Belgian signatory Gerolf Annemans of the Vlaams Belang, the text should “become the political basis for both a new form of cooperation within the EU and the cooperation of the parties and their European Parliament groups that have already signed the document.”

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