On Wednesday, the Patriots for Europe Group in the European Parliament initiated a plenary debate and a resolution condemning political violence, including the attempted assassination of former U.S. President Donald Trump, the current presidential candidate, but the majority of MEPs voted against it, Kinga Gál, the group’s first vice-president, said in Strasbourg.
At her press conference, Kinga Gál criticized the EU parliament for doing virtually nothing to combat the political violence that has already been rife in Europe. She cited as examples the attack on Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and the case of Antifa activist Ilaria Salis, who was arrested in Budapest and “despite almost killing an innocent man, is now sitting in the EU parliament benches, and despite all the procedures, is lecturing us on how to behave.”
Kinga Gál said that in her speech before the agenda, she also referred to Tuesday’s EU parliament vote on the vice-presidencies, calling it disrespectful to the 18 million or so voters behind the Patriots for Europe group and to the basic rules of democracy and the rule of law that neither of the two candidates — Klara Dostalova and Fabrice Leggeri — from the parliament’s third-largest group received enough votes.
“The fact that practically an extreme communist was voted into the positions belonging to the Patriot MEPs with the help of the European People’s Party is unacceptable,” she said, adding that she did not rule out legal action.
“We must fight for what we deserve for parliamentary rules,” she said.
She said that Patriots for Europe had issued a political declaration on the issue, in which it said it strongly condemned all forms of violence in political life, in the light of recent manifestations of political violence in Europe and the U.S.
“The assassination attempts on U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico must not go unpunished,” the statement said.
“We find unacceptable the conniving silence of the left-wing political forces and the legitimization of violent acts against patriotic politicians. We demand respect for political opponents in the left discourse and expect fair and balanced treatment from the media,” Kinga Gál wrote in a Facebook post.
