Translation of Jörg Meuthen’s speech at the launch of the new far-right European parliamentary group “European Alliance of Peoples and Nations” in Milan, 8 April 2019.
"Ladies and Gentlemen,
Let me begin by thanking Matteo Salvini and his team for the impeccable organisation of today's press conference here in Milan. Something important is happening here today, detrimental to European politics of the next few years, and it is a pleasure and an honour for my party, the Alternative for Germany, to be here today.
Today's event is the starting signal for something new, and this starting signal, let me say that, does not come out of nowhere. It is the result of many and very good discussions between sensible political people from the member states of the European Union over the past few months. With Matteo Salvini from the Italian Lega, Anders Vistisen from the Danish People's Party, Olli Kottro from the Finn's Party and me from the Alternative for Germany, you have four representatives of European parties in front of you, who today are getting the ball rolling for the formation of a new group in the European Parliament after the European elections on 26 May. This group will bear the beautiful name […] “European Alliance of Peoples and Nations", abbreviated as EAPN. We are here today, before your very eyes, declaring the clear intention to set up this new group immediately after the elections at the end of May.
It was important to all of us comprised in today's panel, firstly, to make this plan of a new political project public. Secondly, you can see in the panel’s composition that with the parties present here, representatives from all three right-wing conservative groups in the current European Parliament are sitting here. The Finn's Party and the Dansk Folkeparti are members of the current ECR group in the European Parliament, the Lega of the ENF group and I, as representative of the AfD, am currently member of the EFDD Group. In this respect, this composition deliberately sends out the signal that the right-wing conservative patriotic forces in the Union are firmly committed to appearing united rather than fragmented in the European Parliament in the future. Not as an end in itself, but in order to finally shape EU policy in a powerful way - quite differently - from the way in which the forces of the current majority groups, which unfortunately still play a decisive role there, practice it on a daily basis, to the detriment of the people of Europe.
Matteo has already made it very clear what we want to do differently in this group: We want to reform the European Union from head to toe, but we do not want to destroy it. We want a radical change to the effect that the European Union should give competences back to the member states. We want much more power in our home countries and much less concentration of power in the bureaucracies of Brussels and Strasbourg. For example, we also want vital and powerful protection of the Union's external borders. We want to reduce illegal migration into the EU to zero. In the future, only those who have obtained our prior permission outside the EU's borders will be allowed in, and be able to enter the EU. If we want to preserve our Europe of the diversity of rich cultures and its extremely rich heritage - and I emphasise this with determination - then we will have to build a Fortress Europe into which we will only let those we are prepared to let in.
If Mrs Merkel and her peers tell people that we cannot do that, then we will say that we can. All we have to do is want it resolutely and then translate that determination into political action. Matteo Salvini and the Lega are currently showing us in an exemplary fashion how this can be done, and that we must also be prepared to facilitate expulsions at the external borders, and return refugees to their points of departure. Once word has got around that there is no longer any way of illegal entry into the EU by sea, no one will die a cruel death in the sea on a journey supported by criminal human traffickers, because no one will ever set sail to try it again. That is how the Australians set an example with their no-way policy, and that is how we must handle it too. As elected politicians in our countries, we owe the people of our countries security and protection against crime as well as basic protection against social poverty. Once we have achieved this - and we have to achieve this first of all - we can also take care of the protection of a number of other people in need who are acceptable to the people of the member states of the Union. But only then. The priority must be clear: the priority of the protection of ones possessions and one's own kind.
Dear media representatives: assume that something will happen in the next few days and follow it closely. The four of us here today are laying the foundation stone for the formation of this new house. In the coming weeks, many future residents of this new house will join in by signing our letters of intent and participate in its construction. It is to be and will be a house with at least a good dozen inhabitants in the form of parties from many states of the European Union, probably even more, because this house will be a very attractive one for sensible parties. On 18 May - and I maintain the metaphor of the house - we are planning a major topping-out ceremony with all future residents. Immediately after the European elections, the EAPN house will have its roof and, in time for the opening of the new plenary on the second of July, it will be inhabited and filled with life. Welcome to this house are all parties for whom attributes such as conservative, liberal, patriotic are more than empty phrases, but who see these concepts as their real and true basic political orientation. And there are many of them. We do not welcome socialists, communists, ecofascists and extremists from both the left and the right.
Ladies and gentlemen, gentlemen [of the panel], dear Matteo dear Anders, dear Olli: it will be a pleasure and an obligation for Germany and for me personally to engage fully in the future task of recruiting ever new members of the European Parliament into this project. I look forward to this new era. Thank you."
