The demonstration organized by the Belgian Anti-Fascist Coordination is a “social solidarity project” to combat hate speech and aims to promote the return of an “anti-fascist policy.”
Nearly 4,500 people demonstrated this Saturday in Brussels against far-right parties, following the results of the European elections from June 6 to 9, and to denounce fascism and racism in Europe.
European elections 2024: results country by country
The march, which had a good turnout taking into account the usual records in Belgium, took place in the rain and brought together different profiles of protesters, according to the Belgian news agency.
The demonstration began in Mount of Artscentral area where the main museums of the city are located, after traveling through several arteries until reaching Luxembourg Square, located in front of the European Parliament headquarters, where the organizers gave their speeches.
The initiative was organized by the Belgian Antifascist Coordination, which brings together around twenty organizations, social movements and unions, and which asked that institutions implement a “social solidarity project” to combat hate speech.
Before magnitude of the current reactionary wave, a social and anti-fascist policy must once again be the watchword. What was evident at the end of the European fascist regimes of the last century must once again be on everyone’s lips: ‘Never again’,” states the Belgian Anti-Fascist Coordination in its manifesto.
The organizers hope that this Sunday’s demonstration will initiate “a popular response and a social counterattack” to the advance of the extreme right, which they do not consider “unstoppable”, as long as “social, ecological and democratic alternative“.
The far right won 134 of the 720 seats in the European Parliament in the last elections, between those won by the Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and the Identity and Democracy group (ID), which together would occupy third place, just behind the social democrats, with 135 seats, and the Popular Party, with 189 .
Far-right groups ECR and ID could gain another 25 seats and reach 159 if they beat other extremist parties that do not join any political family in the European Parliament.
This is the case of Fidesz, or Alternative for Germany, of Hungarian Prime Minister Víktor Orbán, who was expelled from the Identity and Democracy group during the electoral campaign due to the controversy generated by his candidate’s statements relativizing the role of the SS. during Nazism.
Orbán says Fidesz will join Meloni’s group in the European Parliament after the European elections
In Belgium, King Philip tasked the leader of the nationalist New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) party, Bart De Wever, with attempting to form a federal government.
Therefore, the Flemish nationalist leader will make a first attempt to train a new executivewhich does not necessarily mean that he will lead it.
The N-VA was the political party with the most votes in last Sunday’s elections in Belgium, with 16.7% of the votes, ahead of the far-right Vlaams Belang. In Wallonia the Reform Movement won, with 10.3% of the total votes.
Source: Observadora
