Britain’s Ukip and France’s National Front teamed up with other anti-EU parties to vote against a Russia-critical resolution at the European Parliament on Wednesday (10 June).
The non-binding report, by centre-right Lithuanian MEP Gabrielius Landsbergis, passed anyway by 494 votes against 135 with 69 abstentions.
It raises the alarm over what it calls the emergence of a new “Nationalist International”.
It says the European Parliament is “deeply concerned at the ever more intensive contacts and co-operation, tolerated by the Russian leadership, between European populist, fascist, and extreme right-wing parties on the one hand and nationalist groups in Russia”.
It calls the Russia-backed bloc “a danger to democratic values and the rule of law in the EU”.
It also “calls on the [European] Commission to propose legislation forbidding financing of political parties in the EU by political or economic stakeholders outside the EU”.
French investigative reporters last November revealed the National Front received at least €9 million in loans from a Kremlin-linked bank.
German media and the Austrian opposition say the anti-euro AfD party in Germany and the far-right FPO party in Austria are also being financed by Russia, in allegations they deny.
The far-right Jobbik party in Hungary and the pro-Russian Latvijas Krievu savieniba party in Latvia are facing criminal probes on similar grounds.
The parties regularly speak out in favour of Russia at home and in the EU assembly.
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