BRUSSELS — The far-right Europe of Sovereign Nations party — home of Alternative for Germany — could be outlawed for failing to uphold EU values.
The watchdog that oversees European political parties on Wednesday triggered a process that could result in the ESN being stripped of its right to be a political party and losing its funding.
The ESN party is a separate legal entity from the ESN political group in the European Parliament, which is home to 27 MEPs. Political groups are parliamentary factions, while parties are broader alliances of national parties that are funded through the EU budget.
The ESN political group doesn’t face sanctions, and the only effect that AfD MEPs would feel would be the lack of a political party to provide support in future EU elections or to coordinate policy with like-minded factions.
The ESN party and ESN group were founded by Alternative for Germany in the wake of the 2024 EU election, and include Bulgaria’s Revival, France’s Reconquest (led by Éric Zemmour), Poland’s Confederation, Czechia’s SPD, Hungary’s Our Homeland Movement, the Netherlands’ Forum for Democracy, and Slovakia’s Republic Movement. In 2026 it is slated to receive over €2 million in subsidies from the European Parliament.
The watchdog — the Authority for European Political Parties and Foundations — said it had found evidence that “cast doubt on the compliance” of the ESN party with EU values, the director of the authority, Pascal Schonard, wrote in a letter. The missive was addressed to the Council of the EU — comprising representatives of national governments — and was seen by POLITICO.
The watchdog monitors whether political parties and foundations comply with the EU rules that govern them. Those rules require parties to uphold the Union’s core values — including “respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and human rights, including the rights of minorities” — as enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union.
In his 300-page letter Schonard says there is “evidence” that ESN members are violating EU values. The proof includes court rulings and screenshots and social media posts from MEPs and party lawmakers that display anti-immigration, antisemitic and anti-LGBT rhetoric, including calls for remigration and the depiction of homosexuality as pedophilia. One of the social media posts highlighted in the letter came from Tomasz Michał Grabarczyk, a national politician for Poland’s far-right Confederation/New Hope party, who wrote this month: “Israel is not just a criminal state. Israelis are a nation of criminals.” New Hope retweeted the post.
Neither Confederation nor Grabarczyk responded to a request for comment.
The letter focuses on Bulgaria’s Revival, saying it cooperates openly with Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, as well as accusing it of being behind violent protests in Sofia and attacks against the European Commission delegation in February 2025.
Placing the spotlight on Alternative for Germany, the letter highlights a decision by the German intelligence services in May 2025 to classify the party as a right-wing extremist organization “due to the extremist character of the entire party, which disregards human dignity.”
The AfD did not respond to a request for comment.
The German parliament has previously discussed whether to ask the nation’s constitutional court to start the process toward banning the AfD.
In a statement to POLITICO, the APPF watchdog said it had “provided facts … to the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission, with a view to enabling these Institutions to decide whether to lodge with the Authority a request for verification of compliance with Union values.”
The ESN did not reply to POLITICO’s requests for comment. ESN party President Stanislav Stoyanov told APPF May 4 that the “ESN has no mandate to intervene directly in the affairs of its member parties. However, we remain committed to upholding the core values of the EU through constant dialogue with the related parties.”
Any of the Parliament, the Commission or the Council can ask the APPF to start the formal process that could lead to a party being banned.
If the APPF gets the go-ahead, it will send its observations to the ESN, which could take measures to assuage the authority’s concerns. A “committee of independent eminent persons” would then issue a recommendation before the authority took any final decision to deregister the ESN as a European political party.
Once the authority takes a final decision, the Parliament and the Council have three months to raise objections.
Brussels watchdog moves to ban Alternative for Germany’s EU party
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