Eppink, leader of the list for FvD in the European Parliament

Derk Jan Eppink becomes the leader of the Forum for Democracy in the European Parliament. The party writes this Friday on its website. The leader of the party, Thierry Baudet, proposed Eppink, which is based in New York, and the party congress has yet to approve his appointment.

The former VVD member, journalist and columnist has experience as a politician in Brussels. He worked for European Commissioner Frits Bolkestein and served for the Belgian Lijst Dedecker (LDD) from 2009 to 2014 in the European Parliament. In the 2014 European parliamentary elections, he was one of the VVD list pushers. In April 2018, he terminated his VVD membership.

In Search of Coalitions

Eppink, 60, wants to seek coalitions in the European Parliament, he said in an interview with De Telegraaf .

"That is no longer the case with the group of Mrs. Le Pen, of which the PVV is a part, they are against and going home, but you must try to talk to others, including the left, to organize more parliamentary powers ".

We do not yet know which European group FvD wants to join. Baudet says in De Telegraaf that Eppink, strong of his experience as a journalist, presents himself as a kind of "integrated journalist" in Brussels. Eppink began his career at the European Commission and Parliament before moving on to journalism. He has worked for NRC Handelsblad and De Standaard and is currently a columnist for De Volkskrant.

D66, GroenLinks and the CDA have already indicated that the current European party leaders are also taking the lead of the elections of May 23, 2019. FvD had not participated in these elections before.