European Parliament rejects debate on Trump assassination attempt

Strasbourg (The Brussels Morning Newspaper) – The European Parliament refused a far-right proposal concerning the attempted assassination of Donald Trump and growing political violence.

How did the EU Parliament respond to the debate?

The Patriots for Europe group demanded a debate on the Trump shooting and called for a resolution denouncing the violence. The proposal was abandoned with 337 votes against it, 119 in acceptance and 15 abstentions. Another far-right group, Europe of Sovereign Nations, voted in acceptance, as did the hard-right European Conservatives and Reformists party, which includes the MEPs of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

“Today in the European Parliament the Patriots for Europe submitted to have a debate on the assassination attempt against ex-US President Donald Trump and the elevation of political violence in Europe, but the traditional groups denied this,” the Patriots group wrote in a post on social media.

MEP Kinga Gál stressed that political violence has no place in our societies and should be condemned even when it targets sovereignist and patriotic politicians, which is the case with the endeavour on Donald Trump’s life. She called for a discussion on the attack and political violence in Europe on the same day and for the adoption of a statement in September. 

Patriots for Europe was begun last month and is the European Parliament’s third-largest body. It is home to MEPs belonging to the groups of Viktor Orbán and Marine Le Pen. The centre-right European People’s Party, Socialists and Democrats, liberal Renew Europe, the Greens, and the Left all voted against discussing the attempted assassination. It is normal for these bodies to abandon debate proposals from far-right forces, as part of the so-called cordon sanitaire that maintains them out of the policymaking loop.

Who supported and who opposed the Trump shooting debate?

“We will not give a platform to enemies of democracy, we believe a cordon sanitaire is necessary for all far-right groups in Parliament to prevent them from making anti-democratic positions mainstream,” The Left’s group co-chair Martin Schirdewan said.   “We had an agreement among political groups not to add any debate to this plenary beyond support to Ukraine,” an EPP spokesperson said.

“The left-liberal majority of the European Parliament … does not want to denounce the assassination attempt against Donald Trump,” the group’s first Vice-President Kinga Gál, an MEP for Orbán’s Fidesz party, reported on social media after the vote. “They refuse to speak out about the violence perpetrated against patriotic politicians.”

Belgian far-right MEP and Patriots member Tom Vandendriessche also voiced anger over the rejected proposal, calling it “hypocrisy.” “The outrage over attacks on democracy appears to be quite selective in the European Parliament,” he stated.