The Brussels foreman Derk Jan Eppink had already announced that the outcome would close the door for him and his colleagues. “Then we declare ourselves independent,” said Eppink.
They blame Baudet not only for doing too little to counter anti-Semitism in the party’s youth movement, but also for transforming FVD into “a sectarian movement” under “a kind of messiah”. Besides Eppink, Rob Roos and Rob Rooken are in the European Parliament (EP) for FVD.
They resign from the party but remain in the EP to “continue to implement FVD’s European election manifesto in the 2019 EP elections”. The trio also remains part of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, of which, for example, the Dutch State Reformed Party (SGP) and the conservative Polish ruling party PiS.
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