Absolutely sovereign: ESN Summit in Berlin

The ESN party named its meeting in Berlin—which took place concurrently with the AfD’s Democracy Congress at the Bundestag on June 26—the “first summit of sovereign nations.” According to the party, 200 guests “from politics, the media, and culture” gathered at the Westhafen Event & Convention Center despite the summer heat. The Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) party is the smallest and most far-right European party under the leadership of Germany’s AfD. Prior to the summit, the ESN General Assembly had taken place, during which two new member parties were formally admitted: Italy’s Futuro Nazionale (FN) and the Netherlands’ Forum voor Democratie (FvD).

Among those present were ESN President Stanislav Stoyanov (Vazrazhdane, Bulgaria), Sovereignty Foundation President Alexander Sell (AfD), René Aust, Susanne Fürst (FPÖ), László Toroczkai (Mi Hazánk Mozgalom, Hungary), Kostadin Kostadinov (Vazrazhdane), Ivan David (Svoboda a přímá demokracie, Czech Republic), Marcin Sypniewski (Nowa Nadzieja, Poland), and Milan Uhrík (Hnutie Republika, Slovakia), Lidewij de Vos (Forum voor Democratie, Netherlands), Naglis Puteikis (Tautos ir teisingumo sajunga, Lithuania), and Éric Zemmour (Reconquête!, France).

The ESN is currently under intense pressure after a preliminary investigation was launched against the party. The APPF, the authority responsible for licensing parties and foundations at the EU level, had accused the ESN of violating EU values (see our report “Far-right ESN Faces Ban”). This prompted the ESN to issue a superficial “Berlin Declaration” at its General Assembly. In it, the ESN claims—without any evidence—that it is committed to the following values: democracy, freedom, equality, the rule of law, human dignity, and human rights.

This is unlikely to suffice as a defense against the 300 pages of allegations compiled by the APPF. The statements made at the summit—for example, by the Hungarian representative of the MHM, Toroczkai—also conveyed a markedly different message. Alexander Sell (AfD) from Berlin said in an on-site interview: “I ask you, please visit Berlin, take the metro. And you will see, Germany has changed a lot. And there are a lot of knife attacks. There are ten knife attacks a day in Berlin alone.”

On July 7, the European Parliament voted by a majority to initiate proceedings against the ESN. The proceedings concern only the party family at the EU level, not the parliamentary group of the same name in the European Parliament itself. In the past, other far-right parties and foundations have already been removed from the register, such as the Alliance for Peace and Freedom (APF) and the Europa Terra Nostra (ETN) Foundation.

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Redacción: Ulli Jentsch