Far right cries censorship after exclusion from EU election debate
European Broadcasting Union says Anders Vistisen cannot debate because the far right does not endorse the Spitzenkandidat system.
The organizer of the scandal-hit Eurovision Song Contest is facing another controversy after excluding the far right from a debate in the European Parliament next week due to disagreement over how the EU should nominate the European Commission president.
The European Broadcasting Union invited five political factions — the far left, Greens, socialists, liberals and center-right — to take part in its big debate on May 23, two weeks before the EU election, when voters will choose 720 MEPs and kick off negotiations for the most powerful jobs in the bloc’s institutions.
But neither the far-right Identity & Democracy faction — on course to be the third-largest force in the assembly, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls — nor the hard-right European Conservatives and Reformists will be allowed to take part, due to their refusal to nominate an official candidate to be president of the Commission, a role currently held by Ursula von der Leyen, who is seeking a new term.
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