The European Parliament massively voted to initiate a review against the far-right Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) political group on Tuesday (7 July), while separately France’s nationalist leader Marine Le Pen was found guilty of misappropriation of EU funds.
During the plenary in Strasbourg, MEPs passed the request to assess ESN’s compliance with core European values by 414 votes to 224 with 18 abstentions, in light of discriminatory statements made against minorities.
The vote was intended to decide whether the ESN can be reviewed by the independent Authority for European Political Parties (APPF) for compliance with democratic values.
The APPF had already produced a 300-page report for EU leaders last May, compiling court rulings and screenshots of social media posts from ESN members that display intolerant rhetoric.
The ESN group, whose MEPs include members of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), began chanting “send them back” following last month’s vote on the deportation regulation —a move that added to a growing list of homophobic, antisemitic and racist incidents involving the group in recent years, culminating in a motion from left-wing groups in the European Parliament accusing it of violating European values.
The motion required 180 signatures to proceed, and 247 MEPs from left-leaning groups in the EU parliament signed it. A simple majority was needed for the vote to pass.
“We only had one and a half weeks to collect signatures, we are facing a very broad majority,” German co-president of the Greens Terry Reintke told reporters on Tuesday.
Signatures spanned MEPs from the centre-right European People's Party (EPP) all the way to the Left, signalling widespread support for the democratic measure.
Should the APPF find the party's work to be incompatible with Brussels' values, it could potentially strip ESN of its EU funding — which German Greens/EFA MEP Daniel Freund set at around €2m for 2026.
“Those who incite hatred and violate European core values should not be rewarded with millions from taxpayers' money,” Freund told EUobserver. “This vote is about accountability.”
Nine representatives of ESN member parties are accused of making racist, homophobic, and antisemitic public statements on 26 cumulative occasions.
Is Berlin about to go from conservative to hard-left?
Gaia Neiman