The European Parliament’s first-ever group of right-wing deputies outlined a tough programme on immigration and future enlargement of the European Union, saying that their common basis was to be a “union of patriots.”

The new group, expected to be officially formed next Monday, will be named “Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty”, its prospective leader, Euro MP and deputy chief of France’s National Front party Bruno Gollnisch told reporters.

Gollnisch, member of the EU parliament since 1989, is waiting for a verdict on charges of questioning the Holocaust.

Europe needed a new policy aimed at “reversing the migration flows” of immigrants from outside Europe, Gollnisch said, adding: “It is racist to have immigrants coming into Europe to do the work that Europeans don’t want to do.”

He also said that the EU should take a “circumspect view against future enlargement” of the now 27-member bloc, arguing that further opening up the union’s borders could lead to an influx of workers seeking jobs in the member states.

Ironically, the creation of the new 20-member right-wing group became possible only with the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the EU on January 1.

With five Euro MPs from Romania’s anti-Roma xenophobic Greater Romania Party and one from Bulgaria’s extreme Ataka party, the new group managed to get just the threshold number of deputies needed.

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