Identity&Democracy: EU Commission’s green transition a ‘total failure’

This article is part of our special report Talking about the EU elections.

The European Commission’s efforts towards the green transition are a “total failure”, Marco Zanni, president of the far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) group at the European Parliament, told EURACTIV in a video interview.

“What we have seen so far by the European Commission is a total failure in making this transition […] we will campaign on this point asking for or proposing more pragmatism in this transition, protecting small businesses and people against the unilateral and utopic goals set by this Commission,” Zanni argued.

“[Identity & Democracy’s] political offer is the only one today challenging the EU,” the MEP said, underlining that there must be no more European integration, and no more powers to Brussels.

Migration, the green transition and the safeguarding of different identities in Europe are ID’s key priorities for the next election, Zanni said.

“Immigration is still a rising problem in the EU. Only one solution is possible: protecting the external borders and reducing the numbers [of arrivals] and better regulating numbers of people that we give access to the EU,” the MEP said.

“The second most important topic is the green and industrial transition,” he argued, for which ID is asking more “pragmatism”, including “protecting small businesses and people”.

The third priority is about identity: “We think that putting our different identities, European identities at the centre of the political agenda will be very important to what we have seen, especially in the last few years is an attempt to amalgamate all the identities inside the EU,” the ID president said.

On the spitzenkandidaten process – the possibility of parties internally electing a leader to run for president of the European Commission – Zanni said that “we do not recognise the spitzenkandidat system”.

“We will not have our spitzenkandidat. We recognise the fact that national states should be the pillar of European negotiation in 2024,” the MEP said.

[Edited by Nathalie Weatherald]