Europe’s liberals flip-flop on the far right

 

Europe’s liberals flip-flop on the far right

BY EDDY WAX

17 MINS READ

JUNE 21, 2024 7:00 AM CET

https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/brussels-playbook/europes-liberals-flip-flop-on-the-far-right/

 

Brussels Playbook

By EDDY WAX

with ZOYA SHEFTALOVICH

 

IT’S FRIDAY. Playbook colleague Nick Vinocur will be with you as usual on Monday.

 

MENAGERIE À TROIS: The far-right Slovak MEP Miroslav Radačovský, who in April released a dove in the Strasbourg hemicycle in a Moscow-flavored call for peace, keeps three pet birds in his parliamentary office in Brussels, he told Playbook. 

 

UNWELCOME VILLAGE: The far-left faction in the European Parliament has issued safety advice to staff after “incidents” in which angry individuals got riled up about a cardboard “Free Palestine” sign on display at its stand at the so-called Welcome Village for new MEPs. “One woman would only stop when our MEP [Marc] Botenga arrived and told her to leave, she was banging on [at] my colleagues for 15 minutes,” a spokesperson said.

 

DONALD ON DONALDS: Polish PM Donald Tusk paid tribute to the late actor Donald Sutherland as “the best of all Donalds.” His least favorite? It’s not Donald Duck.

 

IRATXE RUNNING: Socialists and Democrats President Iratxe García, an MEP since 2004, will stand again as group leader, a spokesperson said. And she’ll almost certainly run unopposed. Playbook hears the Italians have backed off and the weakened German Social Democrats won’t challenge either. García is rumored also to have an eye on the Parliament presidency between 2024 and 2026.

 

**A message from Full Beam Media: To all new MEPs: congratulations, you inherit a remarkable legacy. A clear majority of voters want Europe to look to the centre - a Focaldata poll conducted on EU election week shows. Civil society is asking: Stand for Europe's values. Don’t let far-right forces shape our destiny.**

 

DRIVING THE DAY 

RUTTE AND MACRON’S EU PROJECT FACES RECKONING: “Unforgivable,” was how one of French President Emmanuel Macron’s most senior MEPs last month described their Dutch liberal allies’ leap into bed with Geert Wilders. Renew Europe Chair Valérie Hayer threatened to expel them — the natural conclusion of her predecessor Stéphane Séjourné telling journalists for years that Renew were the only real bulwark against the far right in the EU.

 

And then? Nothing. After a crushing election, Hayer fudged it, and now with Renew eclipsed by the hard-right ECR group, the pragmatists who want to keep the group’s numbers from collapsing further are winning. Renew survives, but at what cost?

 

Strategic ambiguity: At home, Macron has done the opposite of Mark Rutte’s VVD party and risked it all to combat the far right. But in Brussels, his MEPs sit with those who opened the door to them.

 

Hayer on the way down: When Playbook spotted Hayer coming out of a meeting with other group leaders and Council President Charles Michel in Parliament on Thursday, she urgently pressed a button to call an elevator and descended without answering questions from the gathering journalists. She could face a challenge for the group leadership next week, potentially terminating the French grip on Renew.

 

Emmanuel Macr-off: Macron’s stuttering Renew project in the European Parliament is in some ways a foreshadowing of the process accelerating in the French National Assembly: Instead of obliterating the center-left and center-right in the EP and ruling as kingmakers, as they managed for a time, Renew MEPs — deeply divided among themselves — now risk being reduced to relative serfdom, summoned by others for key votes but never indispensable.

 

Volt’s shock: After dropping from third- to fourth-largest group, Renew triumphantly announced the addition of a single new MEP to its grouping … only for the five MEPs it had been negotiating with from Volt to say they preferred the Greens. Volt cast aspersions on Renew’s credibility on fighting right-wing populists, pointing out that the populist Czech former PM Andrej Babiš is a Renew member. In fact, Babiš only has three MEPs fewer than Macron now.

 

“Renew, ça va”: At next week’s European Council summit, the liberals could nab a top job for Estonian PM Kaja Kallas, but there will also be a valedictory vibe in the air as Rutte bids farewell to EU summits after 14 years as the Dutch PM and heads north to NATO. For all his smiles, culinary metaphors and insistence that “Renew ça va,” Macron is now damaged goods, and so is the group, which will have fewer choice jobs in Parliament if it’s still in fourth place in a couple of weeks.

 

And it could get worse. ECR Co-Chair Nicola Procaccini told reporters: “We are talking with some other delegations.”

 

Renew-new? “There is so little glue holding it together,” said outgoing Renew MEP Sophie in ‘t Veld. “I hope that means there is going to be an opportunity to create a truly liberal progressive pro-European centrist group when the whole thing falls apart.”

 

Can kicked: Last night Euronews scooped that the liberals won’t kick out the Dutch but will send observers to the Netherlands to find out what they already know about the VVD’s coalition with Wilders. Will it be debated in Vilnius, where the liberals head for their annual council meeting today?

 

For-Guetta-bout it: And what about the Macron ally, Bernard Guetta, who characterized the Dutch move as unforgivable? “It’s obviously a bit of an artificial idea but it’s not a bad idea — to want to wait and reflect before getting into a big argument,” Guetta said over the phone.

 

We can’t all Guetta-long: “Today in all the political groups without exception, people with different visions cohabit. It’s true in the EPP, it’s true with the Social Democrats, it’s true in Renew. And it’s not more true in Renew than elsewhere. It’s the same,” Guetta said.

 

Playbook fun fact: Bernard is the half-brother of French DJ David Guetta.

 

TOP JOBS 

TOP QUESTIONS, TOP ANSWERS: The week between Monday’s inconclusive top EU jobs summit and the EU leaders’ meeting next week raises a lot of questions: Will Ursula von der Leyen make it over the line? What does Giorgia Meloni want? Will eastern member countries be disappointed? Barbara Moens and Jacopo Barigazzi answer them here.

 

WHAT GREENS ARE THINKING WHILE EPP IGNORES THEM: “Until now, no,” was how Green veteran Philippe Lamberts answered my colleague Elisa Braün’s question about whether the EPP had shown any willingness to invite them into the coalition needed to elect the next Commission president, at an event organized by EU Changer last night. “But we’re not there yet,” he added.

 

Inside Manfred’s mind: Lamberts said he figured EPP chief Manfred Weber would think it strange for the new von der Leyen majority to shift to the left when Parliament shifts right. “One can understand the argument,” he said, cautioning too that the Greens’ votes — if sought — won’t come for free.

 

RUTTE GETS NUKES — AND PROBLEMS: When Mark Rutte moves into his office at NATO, he won’t get much of a honeymoon period, from dealing with the potential return of Donald Trump to the White House to pushing allies to pay more into the defense budget. Stuart Lau outlines Rutte’s five challenges here. Meanwhile, Miles Herszenhorn has the details of how NATO’s hopes to Trump-proof the alliance via Rutte could backfire.

 

OMBUDSMAN CAMPAIGN KICKS OFF: Jonas Grimheden, a Swede heading Frontex’s fundamental rights office, wants to use his experience with border management to springboard a campaign to be the EU institutions’ in-house watchdog, Sarah Wheaton emails in to report. MEPs will choose a successor to European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly in December, and Grimheden is the first to raise his hand for a race that’s likely to draw candidates from civil society and legal circles.