Italy’s 5-Star ‘won’t sit together with Le Pen’ in EU Parliament

Italy’s 5-Star Movement has ruled out an alliance with far-right parties in the European Parliament after May’s EU elections. However, the movement remains undecided over its future partners, Reuters reports. “There is no doubt that the Movement will never sit together with [Marine] Le Pen,” 5-Star’s Roberto Fico said in Brussels after meeting leaders of political groups in the EU parliament. The anti-establishment 5-Star rules Italy together with the far-right League. In the European Parliament it sits in the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) eurosceptic bloc with Nigel Farage’s UK Independence Party (UKIP). Le Pen’s far-right National Rally sits in the EU chamber together with the League, led by Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, in their Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF) grouping. Fico, the speaker of Italy’s Chamber of Deputies, wants to meet all political groups before deciding alliances. Earlier on Tuesday, 5-Star leader and Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio said his party wanted an alternative group to the right and the left. Far-right and eurosceptic groups are expected to gain ground in the European elections, according to national polls.