Robert Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz: photo - Facebook
MEP Robert Iwaszkiewicz agreed to join UKIP’s ‘Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy' group’ on Monday, replacing Latvian MEP Iveta Grigule, whose departure last week left the group’s future under question.
Iwaszkiewicz's New Right Congress leader, MEP Janusz Korwin-Mikke – who has said before that he wants to abolish the EU, and the European Commission building in Brussels should be used “as a brothel” - was fined this summer by the European Parliament for making a racist comment in the chamber.
Korwin-Mikke has previously caused controversy with comments on the Holocaust and disagreeing with women’s right to vote.
EU rules stipulate that to receive funding, thought to be worth well over a million pounds a year, groups in the European parliament need to have at least 25 MEPs from 7 different countries.
Grigule’s departure meant that the group only had representatives from 6 countries.
According to the Polish Rzeczpospolita daily, unofficial sources suggest that UKIP refused to allow all of the New Right MEPS - including Korwin-Mikke - to join them, over fears that it would harm their reputation in the UK.
It is unknown what UKIP offered in return for support from Iwaszkiewicz.
Howeve,r another New Right MEP, Michał Marusik, commented that “we are trying to create our own group, and if Farage wants to maintain his own, then he has enough people to help us.”
The New Right has previously attempted to create a new Eurosceptic bloc with parties from Poland, Italy, Austria and the Netherlands, though will need three more countries to be represented for it to go ahead.
Robert Iwaszkiewicz is a former member of the Polish Monarchists Organization, which aims to restore a Roman Catholic royal family to Poland, and was one of the founding members of the anti-EU New Right Congress in 2010.
KPN currently has four members sitting in the European Parliament after receiving seven percent of the vote in the European parliamentary elections in Poland this May. (sl/pg)