Not that's its untrue. The Standard article lists some of the EU's problems, Steve Bannon being one of them:
Austrittswillige Briten, Renationalisierungstendenzen in den Mitgliedstaaten, der erbitterte Streit in der Migrationspolitik. Vor wenigen Tagen nun auch noch die Ankündigung von Donald Trumps früherem, erzkonservativem Chefberater Steve Bannon, Europa kräftig aufmischen zu wollen.
{Britons wanting to leave, re-nationalizing tendencies in member states, the embittered conflict in migration [immigration] policy. Also now the announcement by Donald Trump's archconservative former advisor Steve Bannon that he wants to actively engage in Europe.}
Maïa de la Baume and Larens Cerulus report, though, that some of the more influential far-right players in EU politics are less than enthusiastic about Bannon's project (Europe’s far right doesn’t bear hug Steve Bannon back Politico EU 07/23/2018). Belgium's Gerolf Annemans of the Vlaams Belang party expresses some reservations about Bannon's new project while getting in a dig at George Soros, the favorite Jewish bogeyman of the European far right:
Annemans, who is also president of the Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom, a pan-European grouping, expressed concern that Bannon’s project could be a way to give jobs to his friends, such as former UKIP leader Nigel Farage and Laure Ferrari, a French politician with close links to Farage.With the far right, in Europe and in America, it's often hard to tell how much of one of their projects is politics and how much grift.
“If it becomes an employment vehicle for Farage and Laure Ferrari, we wish [Bannon] the best of luck but want nothing to do with it,” he said, adding that the project at times appears “poorly organized.” ...
Bannon said his ambition is to play a role in Europe in the same way that he believes liberal Hungarian-American financier George Soros does. But Annemans is skeptical about Bannon’s financial muscle, saying: “We don’t feel that he, like Soros, is coming in with a big wallet.”
Another Bannon contact is Matteo Salvini, leader of the Italy’s League party and the country’s interior minister. They met before and after March’s Italian election. But he looks unlikely to embrace Bannon.
The League, according to a Euroskeptic MEP close to the party who didn’t want to be named, is working on “its own political project, own alliances,” building on partnerships with France’s National Rally, Vlaams Belang and Austria’s Freedom Party, as well as forging new ties with Alternative for Germany and the Sweden Democrats. ...
How an alliance forged by Bannon would fit into the European Parliament isn’t clear.
Bannon has hooked up with an existing far-right organization called The Movement (Alastair Macdonald, Bannon's EU project eyes government allies WHTC/Reuters 07/25/2018):
The founder of a Brussels-based group known as The Movement, which U.S. President Donald Trump's former strategist has chosen as a platform, told Reuters he not only hoped for a big vote in the European Parliament but could also see six or seven leaders, notably from Italy and central Europe, joining forces to sway the European Council of 27 national governments.
Speaking at the suburban mansion home that is also his law office and headquarters of his Belgian populist People's Party, Mischael Modrikamen said the Movement would channel Bannon's campaigning expertise and financing from U.S. donors to help like-minded nationalist, anti-immigration groups across Europe.
Nico Hines also reports on the aspiring unholy alliance in Inside Bannon's Plan to Hijack Europe for the Far-Right Daily Beast 07/20/2018.
This project of Bannon's and his far right European friends is in line with the shared desire of the Trump Administration and the Putin government to weaken and ultimately wreck the European Union. With the qualification that it's hard to say how coherent a policy the Trump Administration has on anything.
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