Euro-Skeptics at War with EU Parliament President Schulz

Bribing a Voting Bloc Out of Existence … In the EU parliament, forming a voting bloc requires that parties from seven different countries come together in a coalition. Whether one has such a bloc or not is actually quite important, both in terms of funding and in terms of influence. Earlier this month, socialist EU commissioner Martin Schulz tried to sabotage the bloc formed by euro-skeptic UKIP and Italy’s 5-Star movement by allegedly bribing a lone member of a Latvian party (the Latvian Farmer’s Union) by offering here a post (presumably a well-remunerated one).
Readers may remember that in spite of their huge electoral success, UKIP initially found it difficult to form a coalition, as Mr. Farage refused to get into bed with the far right French Front National. Nevertheless, the supporters of the socialist EU-superstate are quite disturbed by the successes of EU-skeptic parties like UKIP and 5-Star, so the allegations may well have merit. Mr. Farage has become a bit of a celebrity on the internet. His speeches in the EU parliament regularly gather far more views on You-tube than any delivered by establishment apparatchiks like Mr. Schulz. How can one not like someone who dishes out speeches like this one?

This post was published at Acting-Man on October 27, 2014.