Miroslav Klempár: Warning! Is the European Parliament becoming a safe haven for extremists?

Here in the Czech Republic, we have been noting the adolescent craze of the politician Filip Turek, who likes to play the Nazi and boast of admiring Hitler. However, that is nothing compared to what happened with the elections to the European Parliament in Slovakia.

Milan Mazurek, the politician who was convicted of a crime for his hate speech against Roma in Slovakia, is currently sitting in the EP. This is the same person who compared Romani children to animals in a zoo and disseminated dangerous rhetoric denying the Holocaust. His very presence in the EP belittles the European Union’s values.

That’s not all, though. It gets worse. Mazurek has brought with him Ján Pastuszek as an assistant, a person who has been convicted of selling items glorifying Jozef Tiso, leader of the fascist Slovak State during the Second World War.

This is no isolated incident in the stumbling of our democracy. This is happening in Brussels, the capital of the European Union, in the institution built from the ruins of the Second World War that is dedicated to upholding human rights and dignity.

This prompts the question: How can the EP, a symbol of democracy, be a safe haven for individuals who openly espouse extremist opinions?

The Romani political scientist Orhan Tahir is asking: Is Brussels becoming a mini-Thuringia?

This is the first time since the Second World War that a far-right party in Germany has won such a significant share of the vote, with the biggest support for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Thuringia in particular. While some media outlets and politicians are doing their best to describe this problem as restricted to the east of Germany, reality is much more complex. The causes of the frustrations felt by voters with the established parties consist of the catastrophic economic and financial policy there, the growing inequality between the impoverished and the rich, inflation and the rising cost of living, as well as the broken promises of those parties which ran on a ticket of opposing the supply of arms to conflict zones, but currently are driving that spiral forward.

Fascists are gaining power all over Europe and occupying strategic positions, even in the EP, which is meant to protect Europe from such elements of fascism.

A deafening silence surrounds all of this. Where is the outrage of the other MEPs? Where is the condemnation from the parties of the EU’s leading representatives? This quiet acceptance just facilitates the flourishing and growth of extremism as silently as when Hitler and his gang got into power.

This is not just a problem for the Romani community who are the target of Mazurek’s hate, though. This is the problem of all Europeans who believe in the values of equality, justice and tolerance.

We must not allow the mistakes of the past to be repeated. We must be alert and loudly oppose all forms of extremism. We cannot passively watch as the very heart of democracy in Europe is endangered.

We must act immediately, before it’s too late.