According to a report in the British newspaper “The Guardian”, the head of the FPÖ delegation in the European Parliament, Harald Vilimsky, appeared together with the British MP and Brexit advocate Nigel Farage at a benefit dinner hosted by a right-wing think tank in the USA. As the “Guardian” reported online on Saturday, Vilimsky spoke at a dinner on Friday in a hotel in Chicago. The think tank is the Heartland Institute.
First against smoking bans, then against climate protection
The organization was financed by the tobacco industry in the 1990s and fought against smoking bans. Supported by the (oil) industry, the focus in recent years has been on denying climate change itself and man-made climate factors. “A whole series of (donors, note) have turned away since a Heartland campaign equated climate activists with terrorists,” the “Kölner Stadtanzeiger” wrote about the think tank three years ago. Other media reports speak of “systematic disinformation” about global warming.
Farage was the keynote speaker
According to the Guardian, the dinner was a fundraising event for the Heartland Institute’s 40th anniversary. A single ticket cost 199 US dollars (180 euros), and a whole table started at 4,000 dollars (3,610 euros). The “platinum table” at which Farage sat cost 50,000 dollars (45,123 euros). Farage, who sits in the British parliament for his party Reform UK, was the main speaker. But Vilimsky is also listed by the Heartland Institute as one of the speakers. Alongside a picture of the MEP, it says that Vilimsky and the Heartland would work together – “especially when it comes to countering climate alarmism and senseless ‘green’ energy policies in Europe.”
The FPÖ was initially unavailable for comment.
