Here we go again, because the Vlaams Belang may have denied connections with the British National Party, but it’s going to be a bit harder to deny the link to the French National Front and their Holocaust “minimizing” leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, or to the Bulgarian extremist party “Attaka:” Nationalist leaders to form new European ‘patriotic’ party by November.

The only thing about Vlaams Belang that Fjordman would admit was “troubling” was their connection to Le Pen and the National Front. Now the Vlaams Belang is not only failing to distance themselves, they’re strengthening relations with Le Pen. Hello, Fjordman? Anybody home?

(VIENNA) - Right-wing nationalist leaders from four EU member states announced Friday in Vienna the creation of a broad new European “patriotic” party by November.

The leaders of Austria’s Freedom Party, France’s National Front, the Bulgarian Attaca party and Belgium’s Vlaams Belang told a press conference that they had agreed to set up the new party as a counter-balance to other political forces in Europe.

“We say: patriots of all the countries of Europe, unite! Because only together will we solve our problems,” Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache told journalists.

“European parties receive great benefits within the union and so we believe there is no reason nationalists shouldn’t also have a formation like the Socialists, the Christian Democrats, the liberals or the Greens,” the National Front’s Jean-Marie Le Pen told AFP.

The announcement comes months after the demise of the barely one-year-old extreme right group in the European Parliament, “Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty” (ITS), to which several of the founders of the new party belonged.

Asked about the chances of success of the as-yet-unnamed new party, dubbed for now European Freedom Party or European Patriotic Party, Le Pen said, “It’s not necessary to hope in order to try, nor to succeed in order to persevere.”

Unlike a European parliamentary group, which according to EU law requires at least 20 deputies from five different states to exist, a party only needs members from seven states. “Our goal is clear, we want more than 10 parties as members and ideally one party from each EU country,” Strache told journalists.

He said he and his partners were in talks with parties in several countries, including non-EU member states, but refused to give any names until decisions were finalised. The new European party is expected to be set up on November 15. Meanwhile, the leaders of the four parties denied that the concept of an international alliance of nationalist parties could be seen as contradictory.

“There’s no paradox here… because we have the same views in different European states,” Attaca leader Volen Siderov said, citing economic and political sovereignty, a strong stance towards immigration and the preservation of Christian values.