Although the first Parliament in 1979 saw four MEPs from Italy’s Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) and one from the Danish Fremskridtspartiet (PP), the populist radical right (PRR) was not represented in a radical right grouping until the second Parliament. In 1979, the PP rejected radical right cooperation with MSI and instead joined the group of European Democrats for Progress. The number of PRR MEPs has increased significantly since the first Parliament from four in 1979 to 35 in 1989, where it has since remained at between 30 and 38 MEPs. Although the composition of the PRR has changed, with some parties appearing for only one Parliament (in the case of Germany’s Republikaner (REP) and Italy’s Alternativa Sociale (AS)) and others remaining in significant numbers through the history of the EP (for example, Italy’s MSI until its dissolution into Alleanze Nazionale (AN) in 1995, and the subsequent merger of AN into Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party; or the French Front National (FN)), the PRR has consistently constituted a small minority within the Parliament. Currently, since the 2009 election, the PRR parties represented in the EP are gathered from across the EU and are no longer solely the preserve of Western European countries. For example, the UK in the west has two PRR MEPs in the form of the British National Party (BNP), and Romania and Bulgaria in the east have representation through Partdidul Romania Mare (PRM) and National Union Attack (NSA) respectively. In addition, Finland in the north and Italy in the south both have PRR representation. While the influence of the PRR is not restricted to specific geographical areas, neither do these parties hail from only newer EU member states: three of the “Inner Six” European Community nations, Belgium, France and the Netherlands, have PRR representation.
