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Alliance of European National Movements

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The Alliance of European National Movements (AENM) was a European political party that was formed in Budapest on 24 October 2009 by a number of ultranationalist and far-right parties from countries in Europe.[2]

Alliance of European National Movements
PresidentBéla Kovács
Founded24 October 2009; 15 years ago (2009-10-24)
Dissolved2019
Preceded byEuronat
IdeologyUltranationalism
Euroscepticism
Russophilia[citation needed]
Anti-communism
Right-wing populism
Neo-fascism
Political positionFar-right[1]
European Parliament groupNon-Inscrits
International affiliationNone

AENM's founding members were Jobbik (the alliance was established during their sixth party congress), France's National Front, Italy's Tricolour Flame, Sweden's National Democrats and Belgium's National Front.[3]

At the end of 2011, the National Front withdrew from AENM and joined the European Alliance for Freedom (EAF).[4]

In 2014,the All-Ukrainian Union "Freedom" terminated its observer status in the AENM, due to many members of the bloc showing support for Russia in the 2014 Ukrainian crisis.[5]

In February 2016, Jobbik cut all of its affiliation with AENM, and the president of AENM Béla Kovács left Jobbik.[6]

History

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In November 2009, the British National Party claimed that AENM had been extended to nine parties,[7] but this information was not confirmed by AENM President Bruno Gollnisch in 2012.[8]

At a press conference held in Strasbourg on 16 June 2010, the political leadership of AENM was confirmed as follows: President Bruno Gollnisch, Vice President Nick Griffin, Treasurer Béla Kovács and Secretary General Valerio Cignetti.[9][10]

At the end of 2011 the National Front withdrew from AENM and joined the European Alliance for Freedom. However, Gollnisch and Jean-Marie Le Pen maintained their position in the organisation.

In October 2013, Marine Le Pen requested that Gollnisch and Jean-Marie Le Pen leave their positions in the AENM in order to join the more moderate EAF and so unify the French National Front under the EAF banner.[11] Marine Le Pen has tried to "de-demonize" the party, i.e. to give it a more acceptable image. Cooperation with the openly racist and antisemitic parties present in AENM was seen as contradictory to these aims. On November 7, the two declared they have followed the request and left AENM. This also meant the end of Gollnisch's term as the AENM's chairman,[12] a place occupied by Béla Kovács since January 2014.[13]

In the spring of 2013, Svoboda lost its observer status after a conflict with other member groups over its policies towards ethnic minorities in the West of Ukraine.[14] However, Svoboda maintained its informal affiliation with the group until March 2014, when it announced its withdrawal of its observer status from AENM citing several members of the alliance making "statements supporting the Russian sponsored separatist forces and support for the Russian Armed Forces occupation of Ukrainian territory".[15] Béla Kovács, leader of the alliance, had served as an observer at the 2014 Donbass parliamentary election.

In 2014, there were accusations against Chairman Kovács that he or his wife were working for the Russian intelligence service.[16][17] In 2015 the European Parliament lifted Kovács immunity.[18] In September 2020, he was cleared of the charge of espionage.[19] However, he had worked with the Russian secret service SVR RF, but mostly in the form of influencing, with the aim to promote Russian interests through the AEMN.[19] Kovács was sentenced to one and a half years imprisonment for fraud and falsification of documents to the detriment of the European Parliament.[19]

The party did not apply for registration with the newly established Authority for European Political Parties and European Political Foundations (APPF), which was required from 2017, in good time.[20] An application by the party foundation ITE was rejected by the APPF, as the AEMN was not registered itself at that time.[21] Subsequently, the AEMN's application for funding for 2018 was rejected accordingly.[22] Finally, the AEMN was registered as a European political party on 12 January 2018.[23] At the end of 2018, the AENM was removed from the register again. The background was a change in the registration rules, according to which European parties had to submit member parties (with parliamentarians) from seven EU member states in the register. This put an end to the previous practice of AENM registering individual parliamentarians from national parties who did not belong to AENM but to other European parties. For example, parliamentarians from the Front National had regularly provided signatures for the AENM, the APF and the MENL – to which the FN belongs.

For the 2019 European Parliament election, AEMN chairman Kovacs provided the necessary signature of support for the candidacy of the Italian party CasaPound Italia.[24] None of the parties in the AEMN's environment was able to win mandates in the election. After the election, the party was no longer active. For the 2024 European Parliament election in Italy, Royal Italy submitted a symbol with the text "Alleanza europea dei movimenti nazionali" at the top.[25] In 2022, Royal Italy ran with United Right who made a deal with CasaPound in 2019.

Members

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Member parties of the AENM were:[8]

Country Party Abbr. Notes
  Bulgaria National Democratic Party
Национална демократическа партия 		NDP
  Italy Tricolour Flame
Fiamma Tricolore 		FT
United Right[26]
Destre Unite 		DU
  Portugal Rise Up[9]
Ergue-te 		E
  Slovenia Slovenian National Party
Slovenska nacionalna stranka 		SNS
  United Kingdom British National Party BNP
  Hungary Jobbik Jobbik In 2016, it has cut all its affiliation with AENM
  Spain Republican Social Movement MSR On 30 January 2018, the party dissolved
  France National Front (France) FN In 2011, it left to form the European Alliance for Freedom
  Sweden National Democrats (Sweden) ND In April 2014, the party dissolved
  Finland Blue and White Front SVR Party has been inactive since 2015

Party structure

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President

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As of 2019

Board members

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As of 2019

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Nathalie Brack; Olivier Costa (2014). How the EU Really Works. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 120. ISBN 978-1-4724-1465-6.
  2. ^ "Far-right European parties forge alliance", eubusiness.com, 25 October 2009, A handful of European nationalist political parties have formed an alliance to represent them in Brussels... ... Negotiations are underway with like-minded Austrian, British, Spanish and Portuguese parties.
  3. ^ European nationalist parties form alliance, Taiwan News (source: Associated Press), 24 October 2009, archived from the original on 4 March 2016, retrieved 13 November 2009, Hungary's Jobbik, France's National Front, Italy's Three-Color Flame, Sweden's National Democrats and Belgium's National Front formed the Alliance of European National Movements on Saturday and say they expect parties from Britain, Austria, Spain and Portugal to join them soon.
  4. ^ "Marine Le Pen en Autriche". Front National. Archived from the original on 10 November 2017. Retrieved 26 August 2015.
  5. ^ ""Свобода" і європейські націоналісти: конфлікти є, війни нема - BBC Ukrainian - Політика". www.bbc.com (in Ukrainian). Retrieved 3 December 2023.
  6. ^ "Statement of Jobbik on AENM". jobbik.com. 20 February 2018. Archived from the original on 21 March 2019. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
  7. ^ BNP in alliance with nationalists, BBC News, 12 November 2009
  8. ^ a b Réunion de l'AEMN à Hédervár: une profession de foi pour l'Europe des patries (in French), Bruno Gollnisch, 24 October 2012
  9. ^ a b "Alliance of European National Movements Expands to 9 Parties," Archived 2013-10-19 at the Wayback Machine British National Party. Retrieved 18-10-2013.
  10. ^ Meade, Geoff (12 November 2009), Alliance of European Nationalist Mouvements, Fiamma Tricolore, archived from the original on 24 June 2010, retrieved 24 June 2010
  11. ^ "France's FN to team up with other far Right parties for European elections". Telegraph.co.uk. 23 October 2013. Retrieved 26 August 2015.
  12. ^ "FN : Jean-Marie Le Pen "obéit" à sa fille et quitte le parti pan-européen". RTL.fr. Archived from the original on 11 November 2013. Retrieved 26 August 2015.
  13. ^ "JOBBIK, nueva presidencia de la AEMN en su Asamblea General | Tribuna de Europa". Archived from the original on 8 January 2014. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
  14. ^ Shekhovtsov, Anton (3 September 2013), "The old and new European friends of Ukraine's far-right Svoboda party", Searchlight
  15. ^ "Oleh Tiahnybok withdraws Svoboda's membership within the Alliance of European National Movements". Archived from the original on 21 March 2014. Retrieved 26 August 2015.
  16. ^ "KGB-Verdacht erschüttert Ungarns Rechtsextremisten - WELT". 16 October 2015.
  17. ^ "A glorious match made in Russia". 28 September 2014.
  18. ^ "Spionageverdacht: Europaparlament hebt Immunität von Béla Kovács auf". Der Spiegel. 15 October 2015.
  19. ^ a b c "Hungary acquits former member of European Parliament of spying on EU for Russia". Daily Sabah. 24 September 2020.
  20. ^ "Far-right political groups miss EU funding deadline". 9 October 2017.
  21. ^ "Decision" (PDF). epgencms.europarl.europa.eu. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  22. ^ Protokoll European Parliament (in German)
  23. ^ Decision 2018 European Parliament
  24. ^ "Casapound alle Europee grazie all'appoggio di una spia russa". 24 April 2019.
  25. ^ Gabriele Maestri. "Elezioni europee 2024, i simboli uno per uno". I simboli della discordia (in Italian). Retrieved 21 April 2024.
  26. ^ "Elezioni Europee 2019: CasaPound in lizza con Destre Unite". Affaritaliani.it (in Italian). 7 April 2019. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
  27. ^ a b c "Board, management". 28 September 2014.
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