EU-DIGEST

EU far-right groups to form party

Far-right political leaders from four EU nations have unveiled plans to form a pan-European "patriotic" party. The heads of far-right parties from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria and France said their aim was to defend Europe against "Islamisation" and immigrants. At a news conference in Vienna, they said they expected to launch the party by 15 November.

Labels: EU, Politics, Right-Wing

Labels: EU, Right-Wing

Germany/EU: Right-Wing Crimes By Youths on the Rise, Schaeuble Says - by Patrick Donahue

The number of criminal acts committed by right-wing extremist groups in Germany rose almost 15 percent last year as a greater number of violent-ready youths joined their ranks, Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said. The number of violent political acts by right-wing groups with an ``extremist background'' climbed 9.3 percent in 2006, Schaeuble told reporters at a briefing in Berlin. Neo-Nazis are present on 11 of 16 state-level boards of the anti-immigrant National Democratic Party, sometimes chairing them, he said.

The National Democrats gained six seats in the parliament of the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania last September, making it the second state organization to enter a regional parliament after Saxony. The NPD campaigned using election posters with the slogans such as ``Work Instead of Emigration'' and ``Tourists Welcome, Asylum Cheats Out.'' Another anti-immigrant party, the German Peoples' Union, won a parliamentary seat in the city-state Bremen on May 13.

Labels: EU, Germany, Right-Wing