Alarmed by the rise of far-right and openly racist political parties in a growing number of European Union countries, the Party of European Socialists has called on its centre-right and liberal counterparts to join them in building a “cordon sanitaire” around the extreme right.
The party presidency has adopted a tough set of rules on non-co-operation with anti-immigration, xenophobic, anti-Islamist and anti-democratic forces. “The PES expresses its deepest concerns about the worrying electoral trends of extreme-right parties as shown recently in Austria, Sweden, Hungary and the Netherlands”, says the resolution.
PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen said: “All European parties should sign up to our plan to refuse to work with the extreme right and all European parties should reject the politics of fear.” The PES blames the global economic crisis for generating “economic and social despair” and nourishing far-right ideologies.
