Far-right Finns Party moves to ECR group in EU Parliament

BRUSSELS — The far-right Finns Party has decided to leave the nationalist Identity and Democracy (ID) group in the European Parliament to join the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), the party announced Wednesday.

The “radical change in Finland’s security policy” caused by the Russia’s war on Ukraine led the party to “reexamine international cooperation networks,” the party’s statement reads. The war prompted Finland, which shares a 1,340-kilometer border with Russia, to join the NATO military alliance in a historic move for the traditionally nonaligned country.

The Finns party leadership “unanimously decided” to join a group “whose member parties are united by the uncompromising defense of Western civilization and the European security policy architecture” — a goal which can be “best promote[d] through the EU Parliament as a member of the ECR group.”

In February, ECR Chairman Ryszard Legutko stated the group “will stand by Ukraine until Russia is defeated and beyond. The European Union must ensure that Ukraine emerges victorious from this war — and that Russia pays the price for no longer being able or willing to repeat such an appalling act.”

In a document outlining its foreign and security policy priorities published last August, the Finns Party said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marked “the end of an era in the European history,” highlighting “the challenged posed to the democratic Western world by authoritarian countries, especially by China and Russia.”

European lawmaker and ECR Vice Chair Charlie Weimers said the Finns Party’s move was “another sign of a growing conservative and Putin-critical movement” set to “further strengthen the ECR Group as the preeminent Russia-critical voice in the European Parliament.”

The Finns Party, which came in second in Finland’s general election Sunday, currently has two representatives in the European Parliament. It was previously a member of the ECR between 2014 and 2019 before joining ID.

With 64 current MEPs, the ECR group is the sixth-largest in the Parliament — just behind ID’s 66 European lawmakers.