STRASBOURG (FRANCE), Oct. 19 (EUROPE PRESS) –
The vice president of the European Commission responsible for the rule of law, Vera Jourová, accused the extreme right on Wednesday of serving as an “instrument” for the polarization of European societies in order to favor an “anti-European sentiment”.
“Political extremism affects our societies and can even lead to murders, as we have seen in Slovakia,” he said in relation to the murder last week of two young people belonging to the LGTBI community in a shooting recorded in a bar in Bratislava.
During her speech at a debate in the European Parliament on the whitening of the extreme right, Jourová warned that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has given extremist voices “the possibility of creating narratives and exploiting them with the aim of promoting anti-European sentiments” . “We know that Russia has been supporting white supremacists and other far-right extremist groups. They have instrumentalized their speeches and polarized societies,” she said.
However, the also European Commissioner for Justice, has pointed out that the war has also had an impact “on the extreme left and anarchism, whose narratives are attracting the attention of non-violent militants.”
Jourová recalled that the European Commission is working with the Member States to “provide a response to the threat of these violent far-right extremists in the European Union through Europol” and recalled that there is a proposal on the financing of European parties to curb outside interference.
“Democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights are the foundations on which the European Union has been built and we know that democracy has to be protected against those powers that want to destroy it,” he asserted.
For this reason, he continued, the European democracy action plan has been approved, to “protect free elections, fight against disinformation and protect free media”. “The president, Ursula von der Leyen, announced this package, which includes a legislative initiative to protect us from those entities that have been financed or that have to do with third countries and can have an impact on public opinion and the democratic sphere”, has explained.
In this sense, he underlined the importance of these measures, especially with a view to the elections to the European Parliament, scheduled for next year. “In order to preserve fair and free elections, the Commission presented last year in October a legislative proposal on transparency and political advertising”, he indicated before emphasizing that people “have to know why they are seeing a political advertisement and who is paying for it?