“Make Europe Great Again”. AUR organizes a conference of European conservatives and sovereigntists at the Parliament. Controversial names coming to Bucharest

Two MEPs involved in several controversies from the “Law and Justice” party in Poland, a well-known American troll, a doctor who spreads misinformation about vaccines or the niece of Martin Luther King Jr. are among the guests who will speak at a conference entitled ” Make Europe Great Again’ at Parliament on 27 and 28 April.

• As part of the European project PULSE, HotNews.ro together with the Polish partners from Gazeta Wyborcza analyzed the participants of the conference in Bucharest. The article was written by Sebastian Pricop (HotNews.ro) and Michal Kokot (Gazeta Wyborcza)

The title of the event is an analogy to the slogan “Make America Great Again” with which Donald Trump won the US election in 2016. The conference comes shortly after a CPAC event, another title borrowed from the US, which was organized in Budapest and which was attended by the main conservative leaders in Europe, such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban or former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, but also several American politicians close to Donald Trump.

The conference is organized by the “Mihai Eminescu” Conservative Institute, an organization led by AUR senator Claudiu Târziu. In fact, Claudiu Târziu and George Simion are among those who will speak at what the organizers describe as a meeting of conservatives and European sovereignists.

“This event is a unique opportunity to hear and interact with renowned speakers, including Romanian political figures and renowned international guests. George Simion, the president of the AUR, Claudiu Târziu, the president of the National Management Council of the AUR, and other prominent international personalities such as Dr. Robert Malone, Sherronna Bishop, MEPs Nicolas Bay, Ryszard Czarnecki and Morten Messerschmidt, Bruce LeVell representative of the Trump administration will be present. , and Eduardo Verástegui, founder and president of the Viva México Movement,” announce the organizers.

HotNews.ro with the support of Polish partners from Gazeta Wyborcza analyzes the conference invitees.

Ryszard Czarnecki

61-year-old Polish Ryszard Czarnecki has been involved in politics for decades, where he has been active in several parties. In the 1980s, he was a member of the anti-communist opposition, and after the fall of communism he joined the Christian nationalist parties. When their popularity waned in the early 2000s, he joined the populist party Samoobrona, which brought him into the European Parliament for the first time in 2004. When that party collapsed, he joined the Law and Justice (PiS) party in 2008 and he became a member of the European Parliament again.

In 2018, he lost his position as Vice-President of the European Parliament due to his offensive remarks directed at a Polish MEP, Rosa Thun von Hohenstein, from the “Civic Coalition”. Czarnecki, in a public interview, compared her to a Nazi collaborator during World War II, only because Thun gave an interview to the German-French TV station Arte in which she criticized the PiS government for its actions their anti-democratic. When PiS was in power in Poland, the party relied on harsh anti-German rhetoric in its public messages.

In 2021, Czarnecki had to pay back €100,000 from his own pocket to the European Parliament following a scandal over the settlement of a delegation’s travel expenses.

Asked by Gazeta Wyborcza about attending the Bucharest event, Czarnecki said he would like AUR to join the group of European conservatives after the European Parliament elections, the same European family that PiS is a part of.

Zdzisław Krasnodębski

Aged 72, he replaced Czarnecki as vice-president of the European Parliament in 2018. He is one of the foreign policy ideologues of the “Law and Justice” party, being one of those who are often seen with Jarosław Kaczyński, the president of PiS, for to discuss the party program.

Krasnodębski is considered a fierce critic of Germany, although he himself emigrated to this country in the early 1990s. There he was a professor of sociology first at the University of Kassel and then in Bremen.

Dr. Robert Malone

Dr. Robert Malone says he helped invent mRNA vaccines and was wronged for decades. Now he’s spreading unsubstantiated claims about vaccines and Covid-19, the New York Times reported in a biography of the doctor.

He is a regular on Joe Rogan’s podcasts, one of the most popular in the US and has promoted numerous conspiracy theories, but also on Fox News. Dr. Malone questioned the seriousness of the coronavirus and the safety of vaccines.

Dr. Malone routinely promotes himself on shows as the inventor of mRNA vaccines, the technology used by Pfizer and Moderna for their Covid-19 vaccines, and says he doesn’t get the credit he deserves for developing them. Although he was involved in early research into the technology, his role in its creation was minimal at best, Covid experts and researchers, including three who worked closely with Dr. Malone, told the New York Times.

Jack Posobiec

American Posobiec is a well-known figure on Twitter – he has more than 2.5 million followers – thanks to his strong support for Donald Trump and his willingness to promote conspiracy theories. An intelligence officer in the US Navy.

Posobiec fueled the so-called “Pizzagate” conspiracy that claimed Hillary Clinton ran a ring that sexually abused children at a northwest Washington pizzeria, CNN reported.

The US press describes him as a troll looking for any opportunity to stir up controversy, more interested in making headlines than presenting proven facts.

Alveda King

Alveda King is the granddaughter of Martin Luther King Jr., legendary fighter for the civil rights of black people in the United States of America, assassinated in 1968.

She is a well-known anti-abortion campaigner. In 2010, he compared LGBT marriage to “genocide,” according to ABC News.

Alveda King is an active supporter of former US President Donald Trump, and in 2020 was part of the Black Voices for Donald Trump advisory group.

Other participants

In Bucharest, Nicolas Bay, a French MEP with far-right views, will also speak. He was elected on the list of Marine Le Pen’s formation, but in 2022 he was excluded from the formation on the grounds that he was providing information to an opponent in the presidential election, Eric Zemmour – another politician with far-right messages and a vocal opponent of the reception migrants.

Bruce LeVell, former representative of the Trump administration, and Eduardo Verástegui, founder and president of Viva México Movement, an ultra-conservative group, will also participate.

• This article was produced as part of the PULSE project, a European initiative to promote cross-border journalistic partnerships, funded by the European Commission. HotNews.ro collaborates in the project with other prestigious publications from Europe including Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland), Der Standard- Austria, El Confidencial- Spain, Il Sole 24- Italy, Delfi- Lithuania, Denik Referendum- Czech Republic, EFSYN- Greece, HVG- Hungary, Mediapool- Bulgaria.