Populists are the “enemy” of Europe and seek to destroy the continent’s globalist “values”, Angela Merkel has warned ahead of European Parliament elections this week.
Speaking in Zagreb at the weekend, the German Chancellor urged Croatians and other voters in Europe to shun pro-sovereignty, anti-mass migration political forces at the ballot boxes this week.
Patriotism and support for a federal European superstate in which national sovereignty has been transferred to Brussels are “not opposites”, said the chancellor, insisting: “Our values mean we can be proud of our own country and at the same time work to build Europe.
“There are populist currents that in many areas disdain these values, that want to destroy our European values,” said Merkel, pointing to fundamental human rights and the protection of minorities as examples of these.
“Nationalism is the enemy of the European project, and we have to make that clear in the last days before the election,” she added, stressing that Europe is a “project of peace”, a “project of freedom” and “the project of prosperity”.
The veteran German leader appeared at the rally alongside her fellow Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politician, Manfred Weber, the lead candidate of the EU Parliament’s neoliberal, so-called centre-right grouping.
On Saturday, Weber echoed Merkel’s message as he ruled out any cooperation with populists following this week’s vote, telling Croatian media: “Right-wing populists and extremists are those who want to destroy Europe, who are not believing any more in partnership on this continent and we will fight against them.”
At the same time as Merkel addressed a basketball court in Zagreb, patriotic, pro-national sovereignty parties met for a rally in Milan, where Italian deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini hit back at Brussels-backing establishment politicians.
“There is no far-right here, there is just politics of common sense,” he told crowds at the Piazza del Duomo, proclaiming that “The extremists are those who governed Europe for 20 years in the name of precariousness and poverty.”
Describing “the Europe of nations and people of which De Gasperi, De Gaulle, and Margaret Thatcher talked about” as “one of the most beautiful dreams”, the populist League minister called out globalist figures including Merkel, French leader Emmanuel Macron, and billionaire George Soros as “traitors” working to betray this vision “in the name of finance, of multinationalism, of money and uncontrolled immigration”.