Pat Cox

The president of the European parliament has said he expects the far right to make headway at next year's European elections.

But in an interview with EUpolitix.com Pat Cox ruled out a ban on extremist MEPs.

His prediction came amid increasing media speculation that the British National Party may join the French National Front to form a pan-EU alliance of right wing parties for the 2004 poll.

Commenting on the current presence of far right MEPs in the parliament, Cox said they represented "some part of the spectrum of democratic opinion in Europe".

"Who is entitled to be here? That is clear - someone who has been elected by their peer group according to whatever the rules of election are in their member state," he told the website.

"I would not as a politician like to see a European politics in which groups like that could grow," he added.

Cox laid some of the blame for the rise in extremist opinion on the massive economic and social transformation seen in Eastern Europe in recent years.

"There are winners and losers in every act of transformation," he said. "There are people around - populists - to sweep up the losers and to say 'you know what the cause of all this is'."

The way forward was to transform these social changes into real opportunities and to deliver the votes from the intelligent centre, he added.

The parliament's president also expressed the hope that turnout for the next European elections would beat the all time low of 49.4 per cent recorded at the last election in 1999.

Describing the 24 per cent turnout in the UK as a "calamity", he said: "I find it shocking in a democratic society that more people voted for Big Brother on Channel Four than voted in the European elections."