European Members of Parliament Derk jan Eppink (MEP Belgium) and Geoffrey van Orden (MEP England) visited CPAC in Washington on Friday morning, to discuss the European think tank The New Direction, the Foundation for European Reform, and taxes in the European Union. “The EU is all about destroying our nations,” said MEP van Orden, as he mentioned the EU, claiming that their only interest is to take power and redistribute it to the powerful politicians in the unified European government.
MEP Van Orden opened by discussing Margaret Thatcher and her popularity in the UK, saying “half of the population absolutely adores her, and half have a much different opinion.” The Reagan-Thatcher relationship has not been discussed often in recent days. MEP van Orden mentioned through applause the first thing that any Republican President of the United States should do when elected is to “return the bust of Winston Churchill to the Oval Office.”
“MEP Eppink said that Margaret Thatcher was “very determined,” and taught people to say, “I want my money back.” When discussing the actual happenings in the EU, he remarked on the unpopularity of Thatcher in the EU that, “there are rooms in the European Parliament dedicated to all sorts of people…but I doubt Margaret Thatcher will ever be one of them.”
“The European Union is heading in the wrong direction,” said van Orden, also sharing that the official in charge of the military forces in the European government was the National Treasurer in the UK and led the charge for the UK during the Nuclear Disarmament talks. MEP van Orden claims to have asked her “if she had ever even seen a military unit.”
Over the course of MEP van Orden’s segment, he continued to state that “the politicians should deliver to the people what the people want,” implying that the current state of the European government doesn’t operate within the best interests of their constituents, but rather their own personal interest.
Luke Coffey of the Heritage Foundation also sat on the panel, promoting the preservation of the Thatcher-Reagan legacy in Europe, and explaining how the European Parliament and Union function. The ECR (conservative European alignment) grouping is an American-esque idea of conservatism; it places the value, authority, and sovereignty on individual nation-states, rather than Europe as a whole. The European Parliament is the only elected governing body within Europe at this point in time.
The panel closed with the discussion of progressive ideas in Europe. MEP Eppink joked that, to some ‘historians’, “the future is certain; only the past can change.”
