'Nationalist promises are a lie': liberal EU head candidate

[pampango]

Another issue in Europe, he admitted, was the creeping tide of nationalism. In France, opinion polls have suggested that the National Front could take one in four votes in the European parliament elections - enough to make them the leading French voice in Brussels and Strasbourg, the twin cities of the parliament.

So how would the Belgian's leadership attack the rise of the nationalists?

"We need to answer them and say to people - Sorry, we understand that you feel fear. That you fear the crisis, fear the globalized world, but to resolve these problems, the worst recipe is to retreat behind the national borders," he said. "All these problems we are facing, migration flows, toxic products coming from the other side of the ocean, climate change - they are all transnational problems. You don't solve them on the national level," he said.

"They're saying if you retreat behind national borders then these problems will disappear. That is a lie. We have to have the guts, us pro-Europeans, to fight against this."

http://www.thelocal.se/20140505/nationalist-promises-are-a-lie-liberal-eu-head-candidate

I hope Mr. Verhofstadt is not overly optimistic. The far-right, like the French National Front mentioned in the article, are polling very well with less than 3 weeks to go to the election. Retreating behind national borders - kind of an 'every country for itself' strategy - has long been a goal of the far-right.

""They're saying if you retreat behind national borders then these problems will disappear. That is a lie. We have to have the guts, us pro-Europeans, to fight against this."" I hope that is true.

[PumpkinAle]

1. Sadly people are only

listening to the independence/nationalistic promises of the far right and not thinking about what happens when they elected these dangerous people in to office. And they are gaining ground, which is frightening - because they can do so much damage.

[pampango]

2. Good point. It seems that the far-right is good at connecting with people who have complaints; not

so good - even downright dangerous - when it comes to actually governing. I read that the French far-right wants to work with those from other countries to block all legislation in the EU parliament if they get enough members elected - kind of a tea party for the EU.