The European Commission has warned organizers of the Save Europe Act that it may refuse to register the proposed European Citizens’ Initiative, arguing that its migration moratorium and remigration proposals could amount to ‘racial and ethnic discrimination’.
The unusually firm preliminary assessment was sent privately to the organizers and disclosed only through an email to campaign supporters and volunteers, accompanied by an unlisted video from Dutch right-wing activist and co-founder Eva Vlaardingerbroek. It is not a final rejection, but its language indicates that Commission officials have already reached a strongly adverse view of the initiative.
The letter refers to the campaign’s 8 June registration request and objects particularly to its proposed moratorium on ‘non-Western’ immigration, framed around the ‘ethnic and cultural continuity’ of Europe’s ‘native peoples’ and opposition to ‘demographic replacement’.
Such distinctions, the Commission wrote, would be based on people’s ‘ethnic, cultural or civilizational origin’ and would therefore ‘constitute discrimination grounded on race and ethnic origin’. It said the proposal appeared ‘manifestly contrary’ to Article 21 of the EU Charter, which prohibits racial and ethnic discrimination, and Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union, which lists equality, human rights, and minority rights among the bloc’s values.
The Commission also stressed that the organizers could not amend the text, as that procedure applies only when parts of an initiative fall outside Brussels’ legislative powers. Signatures could be legally collected only after the Commission’s official registration.
In the accompanying video, Vlaardingerbroek called the warning ‘the ultimate proof that the European Union hates Europeans’ and accused Brussels of treating the protection of European cultures as racist while allowing pro-migration initiatives to proceed.
‘We’re not taking one word back of the Save Europe Act. We are doubling down,’ she said, promising that the organizers had a plan ready if registration were refused. ‘We will become their worst nightmare.’
According to the email sent to supporters, the organizers plan to travel to Brussels on 15 July carrying the signatures and intend to reach one million ‘with or without’ the Commission’s permission.
Launched on 31 May by Vlaardingerbroek and Austrian activist Martin Sellner, the initiative calls for a moratorium on non-Western and non-European immigration, faster deportations, and an EU-wide system of voluntary or incentivized remigration. Its published charter refers to the rights of Europe’s ‘native peoples’, warns that they could become minorities in their homelands, and seeks the ‘restoration of demographic balance’.
Campaign figures put support at more than 430,000 after one month, approaching half a million. Although these are pre-registration pledges rather than verified ECI statements, the mobilization is politically striking. One of the ECI mechanism’s fastest-growing campaigns was the abortion-access initiative ‘My Voice, My Choice’, which reached 500,000 official signatures in 45 days and later submitted 1,124,513 verified statements of support. The current pace of preliminary signatures for the Save Europe Act suggests that it could have a chance of reaching the same milestone even earlier.
‘Organizers plan to travel to Brussels on 15 July carrying the signatures’
If the Commission eventually refuses registration, the organizers could argue on appeal that Brussels has wrongly equated nationality and immigration status with race, and that migration law routinely distinguishes EU citizens from third-country nationals. They may also contend that registration is merely procedural and does not amount to Commission endorsement.
Concluding their email, the organizers said that more information on the next steps will soon be sent first to supporters. ‘We must make this movement impossible to ignore and too big to ban.’
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