The three most right-wing groups of the European Parliament and their members are all known as 'far-right' — but they have some crucial differences.
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00:00Far-right, hard-right, radical-right, national-conservatism and populism. These terms have flooded the
00:12public debate, blurring distinctions between them. But what difference do they make on
00:17the European political scene?
00:20In Brussels, the members of the Patriots for Europe group met on the sidelines of the European
00:24Summit for the first time. It is one of the three groups on the right side of the political
00:29spectrum in the European Parliament, the Europe of Sovereign Nations, the Patriots
00:33for Europe and the European Conservatives and Reformists.
00:39Euronews has discussed with an expert how to classify them.
00:45Europe of Sovereign Nations is the most extreme far-right group in the European Parliament
00:50and really contains a number of parties that can be considered as extreme right. Now that
00:56means that they don't clearly always respect parliamentary democracy. That means they
01:01have a number of authoritarian traits.
01:05The Europe of Sovereign Nations is the smallest and most recent parliamentary group. The Alternative
01:10for Germany represents more than half of the group's members.
01:16The professor calls the group illiberal because of its rejection of the independence of justice,
01:21rule of law and individual freedoms.
01:26He also calls it nativist because of its strong opposition to immigration and the kind of
01:31distinctions it makes between immigrants and people born on the territory.
01:37Well the clearly illiberal and nativist parties can mostly be found in Europe of Sovereign
01:43Nations. They are clearly the group that contains most of these parties, but also some parties
01:50that are integrated in patriots for Europe can also be considered illiberal.
01:59These two groups can also be classified as populists according to the professor. Often
02:04confused with demagogy, populism refers to a binary vision of society that opposes an
02:09elite portrayed as corrupt and the people presented as homogenous and pure.
02:15Finally, some parties of the European conservatives and reformists can be considered radical right.
02:21According to political scientists, the radical right refers to parties that have adopted
02:27two ideologies, nativism and authoritarianism, which promotes respect for authority and order.
02:35Not all the parties within ECR at least can be considered as radical right. They are often
02:40rather nationalist and conservative parties, but some other ones can on the other hand
02:47be considered as radical right.
02:50These three groups are generally nationalist, sovereignist, conservative and Eurosceptic.
02:55However, while from an academic point of view, all three can be classified as far right,
03:00most parties reject this label.