Vistisen exclusively tells Euronews there is “no more political divide” between Meloni and Le Pen’s political factions than there is within other mainstream political groups.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 The far right in Europe have been steadily on the march for years.
00:05 But these European elections could be a watershed moment,
00:09 as a group of radical right-wing parties set their sights on becoming the third biggest political force in the European Parliament.
00:19 In this edition of the Global Conversation, I ask the man who's been fronting their campaign,
00:25 Denmark's Anders Vistesen, about his proposals on migration, support for Ukraine,
00:31 and about damaging allegations of foreign interference at the heart of his party.
00:37 Anders Vistesen, welcome to the Global Conversation.
00:43 Now, you represent the Identity and Democracy Party,
00:48 which brings together some of Europe's most radical, some would say, right-wing parties.
00:54 Yet, Identity and Democracy has not officially fielded you as a lead candidate.
01:00 It hasn't published a manifesto for these elections, and it hasn't held any kind of political congress.
01:06 Do you fear that voters at home could feel you're not taking these European elections very seriously?
01:13 No, I think we're the only one taking the EU constitution seriously.
01:18 It is the European Parliament who is bypassing the procedure for electing the Commission President,
01:24 who is clearly in the treaty, something where the Member States are in the driver's seat,
01:28 and the Parliament subsequently approves the nominee or not.
01:32 This is a coup d'etat from the European Parliament Party's side,
01:35 that they want to take in a prerogative that has, in the treaty, been given to the Member States.
01:41 You are racing ahead in the polls in some Member States.
01:45 You are set to gain as much as maybe 20 extra seats in the European Parliament,
01:51 not far from where we're sitting here in Brussels.
01:54 But we know that traditionally you've been deeply Eurosceptic, some would even say anti-European.
02:01 So how are you hoping to use this new increased influence
02:05 to shake things up here in the European institutions in Brussels?
02:10 I think you already see the influence.
02:12 You saw it on the nature restoration bill, you saw it on the pesticide package
02:17 that the Commission tried to push through just before the election.
02:20 But you also saw it in the hurry up to get through the migration package.
02:24 Even though it's an inefficient package that will not resolve the fundamental problem of illegal migration,
02:28 it's clear that just the fear of us having a good election has prompted some response
02:33 that has not been seen since the migration crisis of 2015.
02:37 So what we're going to experience on the European level is what we have seen in Denmark, Sweden,
02:41 and the Netherlands already, that the rise of the Eurosceptical Conservative Right
02:47 will have the other parties adjust their most insane policies when it comes to the Green Deal,
02:53 when it comes to migration and so on.
02:55 So you're saying that fear of your electoral success on the far right
03:00 is actually driving some of the policy decisions here in Brussels?
03:05 I think that's quite obvious if you make an analysis that you saw this Parliament coming in
03:09 claiming to be the most green, claiming to sort of fulfill the promise of a climate election,
03:15 has now backtracked significantly.
03:17 And if the polls just more or less hold steady as they are right now,
03:22 I don't see any significant more burdensome regulation
03:26 when it comes to the green transition in the coming years.
03:29 So that is a very concrete result of the electoral hope success of our fraction.
03:34 So your faction, from the outside for many, it seems like it's sometimes deeply divided itself.
03:42 Recently you lost Francis Reconquet, who moved over to the other right-wing faction,
03:48 which is the European Conservatives and Reformists, the ECR, which you also previously sat with.
03:53 We also saw the Finns party moving across because they were deeply uncomfortable
03:58 with some of your positions, for example on Ukraine.
04:01 Do you fear that more and more parties could abandon identity and democracy,
04:06 move over to the ECR and isolate you on the fringes as a more party on the extremes?
04:13 No, I don't really see that. I think it's a bit of a false narrative put out there.
04:17 We saw that the PIS in ECR, the Polish party, invited in the National and Viktor Orban.
04:24 So if you should be divided on Ukraine, it doesn't really make political sense.
04:28 As you said yourself, I served five years in the ECR group.
04:31 There were people who were more or less sceptical towards Russia.
04:35 They are still there. So I think you see the same divides.
04:38 What is, in my opinion, wrong is that you have two groups to the right.
04:42 And I think that has more to do with big personalities and some of the bigger parties
04:47 than it has to do with political differences.
04:49 There is no more political divide between the ID and the ECR than what you can see
04:53 within the EPP, the S&D or the Renew parties, for instance.
04:57 So could you see those two right-wing groups reorganising themselves,
05:01 particularly after the elections? Could you see a possible unification of those two groups?
05:05 Yes, I think you will see that someday. You already have it in the Council of Europe
05:09 where the two groups have merged together in a dual party.
05:13 I think maybe not just after this election, but I think the French presidential elections
05:20 that are coming up in a couple of years could be a point in time that is very interesting to look forward to.
05:25 Now you've mentioned Ukraine and I'd like to focus a little bit on Ukraine
05:30 because some voters at home are extremely concerned that the rise or the surge in support
05:37 for parties like your member parties could mean that EU support for Ukraine
05:42 will be significantly undermined. Can you clarify to voters at home today
05:48 how far you are willing to go to support Ukraine as it tries to withstand Russia's invasion?
05:56 Our group believes in national sovereignty and we fundamentally believe that foreign affairs
06:01 is something that should be decided nationally and not be coup d'etat from the European Union
06:05 to overtake that competence and remove the veto right.
06:08 But I would challenge the perception that Europe has been very pro-Ukrainian.
06:12 My home country of Denmark, with my party's support, has given twice as much military aid
06:18 as France, Spain and Italy put together.
06:21 So Denmark with 6 million inhabitants has given twice as much military support
06:26 as the second, third and fourth largest economy of the European Union.
06:30 We just saw now that due to the Polish and French government
06:34 we halted EU import of agriculture from Ukraine.
06:38 So I fundamentally more agree with the Ukrainian foreign minister when he said
06:42 that at the current state of time North Korea is a better military ally for Russia
06:46 than the European Union has been for Ukraine.
06:49 But then again we've seen quite unprecedented decisions here from Brussels.
06:53 Big packages of funding, ramping up the military support, sending arms.
06:58 Surely you feel there's still a big role for Brussels to play when it comes to backing Ukraine,
07:04 propping up its economy and ensuring it has the material it needs on the battlefield.
07:09 But I don't see that push from Brussels.
07:11 Right now the UK individually has given more than the European institutions
07:15 in military aid for Ukraine.
07:17 It's not very impressive that 27 member states of the EU as an institution
07:21 have given less than one member state outside the European Union at this present time.
07:26 So I think that there is a lot of toasting and champagne for Ukraine in this city of Brussels.
07:32 But when it comes to concrete action it lags behind.
07:35 If the Americans were not in it to help the Ukrainians the war would be lost for them
07:39 because Europe has not stepped up to the plate.
07:42 The bilateral aid is mostly geographically something coming from Northern Europe,
07:46 from the Baltic countries, from Poland and partially from Germany.
07:49 Beside those six or seven member countries it's quite a poor track record.
07:54 Do you think Ukraine should start negotiating peace with President Putin?
07:58 I think it's for the Ukrainians to decide if and when they want to begin peace negotiations.
08:03 It is not something that should be pushed upon them by allies of my outside influence.
08:09 But do you think it would be preferable for the war to continue
08:12 or for a peace deal to be negotiated even if that means surrendering some of the Ukrainian territory?
08:18 I think if Ukraine should have a fighting chance to push back Russia through the borders
08:24 from before the Russian invasion of Crimea, the military aid is falling far too short and far too late, unfortunately.
08:32 And we are seeing it also right now.
08:34 We are not able to deliver anti-air missiles.
08:38 We are not able to deliver fighter planes in disguise.
08:42 It's a big problem and I think it's quite unrealistic right now
08:46 to see Ukraine having a fighting chance with the lack of support that they are receiving.
08:50 That's quite a pessimistic picture you paint.
08:52 You are saying that in that case, because the Ukrainians are finding it so difficult to find the material,
08:58 the weapons, the ammunition that they need, that they need to consider moving on to peace negotiations.
09:04 Is that something that you are insinuating?
09:06 No, I'm not. I'm saying that if the Americans are not continuing their high level of aid,
09:10 then it's very difficult to see the Ukrainians winning this war.
09:14 I hope all the best for them. I hope that Europe would have stepped up to the plate.
09:17 But here, more than two years in, we are seeing Europe falling far behind and far too short.
09:22 We cannot even deliver one million artillery shades.
09:25 North Korea, as a depraved dictatorship with no real economy, has delivered two or three times that to Russia.
09:31 Do you support Ukraine's accession to the European Union once it has met all the criteria, including on fighting corruption?
09:40 I think the timeline is unrealistic and I think it would be a too significant change to the European Union
09:46 from my point of view.
09:47 But there is no timeline set in stone. It's once they meet those criteria.
09:52 I would disagree with that. When you hear Jean-Michel talking before 2030,
09:56 when you hear Ursula von der Leyen saying that maybe we could face them in, not with all the rights in the beginning,
10:02 that was how they did the eastern expansion and the eastern enlargement 25 years ago.
10:07 They became members, but there was some restriction in freedom of movement for a duration of a year.
10:12 Even today we have members that have been here for more than 20 years who are not fully Schengen members.
10:17 So no, I think what is being laid down as the road map from Brussels is not that you have to live up to the Copenhagen criteria from day one.
10:26 It's more gradual integration where you get the membership rights and then we hope you are improving to the better.
10:33 And let me just say with not only Ukraine, but the eight to ten member countries we are talking about at the moment,
10:38 that it's the same forces that are complaining about rule of law in Hungary and other places who are now saying
10:44 let's speed up a procedure where we are letting countries in with a far worse track record when it comes to a lot of these benchmarks
10:50 than what you have seen in Orbán's Hungary.
10:52 Now, we've spoken about Ukraine. I'd like to move on and look at Russia.
10:57 Because you mentioned a few of your member parties, Rassemblement National for example in France.
11:01 Historically they've had quite close ties to Russia.
11:05 And now we're seeing investigations being opened into sitting parliamentarians on the suspicion that they might be receiving money
11:15 from Russia to spread pro-Kremlin propaganda in Europe.
11:19 Are you concerned that some members of the Identity and Democracy Party are being influenced by Russia or by China?
11:27 Yeah, I'm always concerned about outside influence as well as I was concerned when I was heading an EEP delegation to Morocco.
11:33 And so S&D members talk very favourably about an Islamic dictatorship and afterwards we found out that they received quite a huge amount of money for that as well.
11:42 But just to point it out, when we are talking for instance about Rassemblement National,
11:48 I could come with a multitude of examples of European heads of state who had an equally naive view on Russia before the full-scale invasion.
11:55 We saw France still wanting to sell hangar carriers to Putin after the Crimea invasion.
12:02 We have seen the gas from the Nord Stream 2 pipeline being pushed through by German politicians, both to the left, to the centre and to the right.
12:10 We saw the Danish now Prime Minister, now Foreign Minister, now then Prime Minister opening up the amusement park Tivoli to drink beer with Putin
12:20 when he was on a state visit to Denmark.
12:22 So unfortunately a lot of people have been naive when it comes to Russia.
12:25 That's not something we can patent on the right.
12:28 That was before the invasion of Ukraine. Are you taking action already?
12:32 Because you are saying that if these investigations come to a conclusion we will take action.
12:37 But isn't there something that you should do right now to make sure that ahead of these elections, this democratic exercise,
12:43 there is no foreign interference in your party?
12:46 Yes, of course, if we can have a concrete accusation that we can act upon.
12:51 If they don't live up to their promise and if these allegations come through, then of course it will be a matter for our Bureau to decide.
12:57 I'm just saying very quietly that we have seen these problems in a multitude of groups
13:02 and it's a bit strange that there should be a different scale that you weigh such an incidence on.
13:09 Now, at the heart of these ongoing investigations is a media outlet, or a so-called media outlet,
13:16 that has now been sanctioned in the European Union, called Voice of Europe.
13:21 There are suspicions that this was a pro-Kremlin influence operation that was paying sitting MEPs to spread propaganda.
13:29 You gave a one-on-one interview to Voice of Europe earlier this year. Were you paid for that interview?
13:36 No, of course not. That interview was set up at the same premise as this interview.
13:40 I was asked to give an interview and I applied. That's my job as a politician.
13:46 I think that it is worrisome that this outside influence is also generally used to spread misinformation about the right.
13:55 I have a record when it comes to being firm on Russia, firm on China. Nobody has ever doubted that.
14:03 Sometimes these allegations are of course also used politically.
14:06 I'm quite surprised that the European Parliament, for instance, has put an equality sign between being Eurosceptic and spreading fake news.
14:14 You can easily be Eurosceptic without spreading fake news.
14:17 I'm also concerned that, for instance, Catalon separatists or Scottish separatists,
14:23 people who believe in the United Kingdom withdrawing from the European Union have to be labelled as pro-Russian.
14:30 I think you can hold all of these opinions without being a proxy of Russia or China.
14:35 Now I want to move on to migration. I know it's a priority in your policy platform.
14:40 We know that you want to change the way Europe deals with migration, especially irregular migration.
14:47 But for people at home, can you clarify exactly the measures that you're proposing?
14:52 Our proposed model is the Australian model, where you say that if you try to enter into Europe illegally,
14:58 then the one thing you can be sure of is that you're not being allowed to stay here on this continent.
15:04 We have a need for protection that has to be dealt with in a third country.
15:08 That has proven to be a very efficient model.
15:10 When Australia implemented it, their numbers dropped by 95% over one calendar year.
15:15 So we think that the solution is quite straightforward, up to the point where we can get support for such a model,
15:21 which I don't see in the mainstream European political sphere right now.
15:27 I think the Danish migration model is something that can be looked upon by other countries.
15:34 Our numbers are extremely low when we compare them to Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, France.
15:41 So a model under a socialist government?
15:43 The model we implemented in the previous right-wing government, but is now adopted by the socialist government.
15:47 But I think that proves what happens when you let in the right side of the political sphere in the policymaking.
15:53 What was controversial when the Danish People's Party mentioned it in the 90s,
15:57 is now universally accepted migration policy from the socialist People's Party in the Green Group
16:02 and to our party on the right side of the spectrum.
16:05 And I think if other European member countries have been a little bit earlier to implement some of these measures
16:10 that we implemented in 2001, 2005, then Europe would have been in a much better place today.
16:16 What about this concept that is also making it into the mainstream of outsourcing asylum applications,
16:22 following the model such as Italy's where they struck a deal with Albania.
16:27 Is that something you would be pursuing?
16:29 It depends very much what you mean by that model, because there are sort of two variations in play.
16:35 There is one that is closely linked to the Australian model, where you have to come into European sovereignty
16:40 and then be moved to the third country.
16:42 And then there is another model where you say what Denmark calls embassy asylum,
16:47 and that if you make it to an EU representation on EU camp, then you can apply for asylum in a third country.
16:53 The first model we would be in favour of.
16:55 The second model would lead to a much more uncontrollable situation.
16:59 But the first model could face some legal obstacles here in the EU.
17:03 How confident are you you can overcome those?
17:07 Now we have the Italian case.
17:09 We will have, of course, UK have left, but we will see if they can implement their so-called Rwanda deal.
17:15 But on this perspective, I think it would be much better if the member states had more sovereignty.
17:20 And I can see the new Dutch government is also calling now for an opt-out on home affairs and asylum,
17:25 as Ireland has it, as Denmark has it.
17:27 That would give them greater manoeuvrability to resolve these issues.
17:31 And I would hope that the EU would be more lenient to allow for such models.
17:37 What about legal migration?
17:39 Countries such as Meloni in Italy are calling for legal pathways, because we will face a steep demographic decline in Europe.
17:47 We need a workforce.
17:48 What would you do to ensure people can come here legally to work?
17:52 I think it must be for the member states to find out what kind of legal migration they want to allow and how they want to do it.
17:58 I think we have a good record in Denmark for the last 20 years with the so-called blue card and green card model,
18:04 where you come if you have qualification, where you come if you come from countries who historically have been easy to assimilate into society.
18:11 And then we can see quite high numbers of migration work very well within society.
18:15 But of course, if you continue to have irregular migration, especially from countries that have proven very difficult to assimilate,
18:21 then you'll continue to have these problems.
18:24 Now, you've clearly said you will not back Ursula von der Leyen for a second term as the Commission President.
18:29 Who do you think would be a better candidate for the job?
18:32 I think it's a locked-in situation.
18:35 There is only one real opposition to the status quo, and that comes from the right.
18:39 That is also when we have these so-called Spitzenkandidaten debates, the other parties don't really compete for the spot.
18:44 They just ask von der Leyen to give guarantees and policy or parliamentary procedure, who should she form her correlation with and otherwise.
18:54 So I don't really think this is a contested election.
18:56 Everyone has more or less accepted that the EPP will retain their position, and the only ones who have declared that they will not just vote for von der Leyen is on the right.
19:04 So we are de facto the only and the main opposition to the current status quo.
19:08 And finally, to close off, do you hope that the Cordon Sanitaire, this kind of firewall that has separated you for so long, will be taken down,
19:16 and that potentially you even could get a top job in Brussels in the future?
19:20 I don't know. I have been first vice-chair of the EFFED committee, which is one of the higher offices in the European Parliament.
19:26 It didn't really mean that much to me.
19:28 In reality, I think policy is the most important thing to drive the policy that your voters are expecting from you.
19:34 And if the other parties continue this Cordon Sanitaire, I think it will break down.
19:39 We have seen that in Denmark, we have seen that in Sweden, we are now seeing it in the Netherlands.
19:43 I think it will be a difficult job held in France already now, and also in Flanders.
19:48 And in Austria, it has fell already.
19:51 So I think the voters will end Cordon Sanitaire much before the mainstream politician will think about it.
19:55 Anders Huston, thank you very much.
19:57 Thank you.
19:58 [WHOOSH]