How the guilty judgment of Marine Le Pen Europe splits

Good morning. A first to start with: the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Denmark will meet the American Foreign Minister for Bilateral Discussions this week, in the first personal meeting at a high level between the two countries since the election of Donald Trump as president and his demands of ‘control’ of Greenland.

Today, Laura reports on how Europe’s on the far right gathered to condemn the eclipse of Marine Le Pen, and the head of the largest party in Europe tells me that Brussels is inserted to tackle Donald Trump.

Rallying Cry

The far right of Europe hurried to defend their French colleague Marine Le Pen after she was convicted yesterday for darkening writes Laura Dubois.

Context: A court in Paris sentenced Le Pen and other former members of the European Parliament yesterday for the transfer of approximately € 4.4 million in EU funds, which means that their Rassemblement National Party is back in France. The verdict that Le Pen says she will appeal will probably forbid her to walk for President in 2027.

Prominent extreme right-wing politicians were quickly denouncing the statement as anti-democratic, pointing to the record breakdown numbers of Le Pen in France. “Nowadays it is not only Marine Le Pen who is wrongly convicted: it is the French democracy that is being carried out,” Le Pen’s 29-year-old Protégé Jordan Bardella posted on social media platform X.

Some compared the decision in the recent prohibition of Romania of the extreme right-wing candidate Cicipescu from the presidential race of the country, after a disinformation campaign.

Sławomir Mentzen, who leads the extreme right-wing Confederation Party of Poland, said that it was “the second time after Romania that the system removed candidates who could pose a threat”. Mentzen, whose party appeals to a national decision on alleged financing disorders, climbs in polls prior to presidential elections in May.

Romania’s new presidential leader George Simion said: “The aiming or destroying your political opponent in any way comes directly from the manual of totalitarian regimes”.

“This is crazy. Lawfare is wrong, which it focuses on,” wrote the Greek economist and former politician Yanis Varoufakis on X. “The neofascists of France will only benefit from this.”

The return emphasizes the difficulties to maintain democratic checks and balances on politicians who promote illiberal policy and sometimes violate the law – but are becoming increasingly popular, as reflected by Donald Trump on the legal system in the US.

“Justice is rightly served in this case, where the French extremely brutal darkened funds,” said EU director of Transparency International, Nick Aiossa.

Damian Boeselager, a liberal EU legislator, said that the verdict “is not a witch hunt. It prohibits criminals to set fire to the stake.” The French liberal Mep Pascal Canfin wrote on X: “The RN only had one thing to do to prevent them from being in this situation: not cheat.”

Chart du Jour: Baby Bust

The number of babies born in Italy reached a new low point last year and worsened the demographic misery of the country.

Brussels ‘Monster’

The EU has become an institutional ‘monster’ that is unable to tackle Donald Trump’s attack, has warned the Secretary-General of the largest political party of the Blok.

Context: US President Trump still has to speak with one of the EU institutional leaders. A wave of American rates will reach the EU tomorrow, despite diplomatic supplications of national leaders who met Trump.

“The EU has become a sample of hyper-institutionalism,” said Thanasis Bakolas, Secretary-General of the center-rights European People’s Party. “It is too institutional to deal with Trump.”

Bakolas, who will resign from the EPP this month to find its own political consultancy, said that the EU needed a more “pragmatic political approach”.

“The [EU] Institutions are very strong and suck the air out of everything. We can forget in Brussels that we have thousands of civil servants, with huge salaries tax -free, who feed each other and perpetuate this institutional order, “Bakolas said.” How connected are they with real people? Real people, real companies? . . . This has many consequences for normal politics in EU countries, outside the bubble. “

“Trump has recorded everything. All uncertainty and questions caused by Trump has led [European] Things to wonder if it has a voice. . . And it starts to understand that this is not the voice they want, “he added.

Bakolas, who was appointed three years ago after he was served as a senior adviser to Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, sent the EPP to last year’s European elections, in which they won another chair than in 2019 despite a wave to support right -wing parties.

This resulted in EPP candidate Ursula von der Leyen who was reinstalled as chairman of the European Commission for a second term.

“She campaigned, she positioned herself about problems … She really did well, and we won,” said Bakolas. “She made economic competitiveness the most important point of the campaign – and she didn’t mean it alone, but had the same money.”

What to view today

1. The German Foreign Minister Analena Baerbock and Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs visit Kęstutis Brivrys Kyiv.

2. College of European Commissioners meets in Strasbourg.

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