EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - In a provocative move ahead of next week's EU vote, the Party of European Socialists have listed "a selection of terrible European election candidates" from other political parties.

The list, published on Thursday (28 May), contains eight nominees from the centre-right European people's party, one from the liberal group, two others - a Dutch politician and the head of Britain xenophobic British National Party, Nick Griffin.

The Socialists' blacklist comes just one week ahead of the European elections

A twelfth space has been left for the "Dear Reader" to fill in.

There seems to be no fixed criteria for appearing on the list, and the reasons given differ in length, content and seriousness.

Mr Griffin, on the list due to have being convicted for incitement to racial hatred and Holocaust denial, appears alongside Romania's Monica Macovei, a former minister of justice, who is down for "being a perpetual critic of the justice reform pace in Romania" and being a "controversial person."