EU
Parliament centrists circle wagons to keep far right out of top jobs
Liberals are
incensed over a backdoor deal between the EPP and ECR.
After seeing
his far-right National Rally blocked from power in France, Bardella is now
watching rivals in the European Parliament trying to stop his new Patriots of
Europe faction from chairing two parliamentary committees |
JULY 9, 2024
7:21 PM CET
BY EDDY WAX,
ZIA WEISE, CAMILLE GIJS, PAULA ANDRÉS AND CLOTHILDE GOUJARD
BRUSSELS —
Jordan Bardella is jumping from one cordon sanitaire to another.
After seeing
his far-right National Rally blocked from power in France, Bardella is now
watching rivals in the European Parliament trying to stop his new Patriots of
Europe faction from chairing two parliamentary committees.
When the
groups in the Parliament met on Monday evening to decide who will chair the
powerful committees, the Patriots chose to lead the transport and culture
committees, as first reported by POLITICO. But when those committees meet for
the first time on July 23 to formally choose their leadership, other groups are
expected to put up candidates to block the Patriots.
“I expect
the democratic forces in Parliament to ensure that the new Russian-friendly
group is not allowed to participate in shaping the European Parliament,” said
Katarina Barley, a German social democrat MEP. “The firewall to the far right
must stand firm. No official positions, such as committee chairs, may go to
members of this group,” she said in a statement to POLITICO.
The same
thing happened five years ago when centrist groups imposed a cordon sanitaire
on the Patriots’ predecessor, Identity & Democracy, thwarting that group's
plans to lead the agriculture and legal affairs committees. The firewall
extended to vice-chair positions last time around.
Speaking
before the deal was struck, Jean-Paul Garraud, a senior National Rally MEP,
said: “We are here in a sort of temple of democracy and those who permanently
lecture us set against us a rule which is totally anti-democratic … it’s
totally unacceptable.”
“With the
evolution of the political landscape it seems to me very difficult to impose
this very undemocratic functioning on us today,” he said, adding that the
Patriots represent millions of EU voters. The group may be new, but it’s the
third-largest in the Parliament and has 84 MEPs from parties in 12
countries.
Scrap over
civil liberties
Monday
night’s deal raised the prospect of the hard-right European Conservatives and
Reformists — the home of Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy and Poland’s Law
& Justice — chairing the civil liberties committee (LIBE), which handles
sensitive topics such as the rule of law and migration.
That spooked
MEPs on the left.
German
liberal MEP Moritz Körner said: “Meloni's and [PiS leader Jarosław] Kaczyński’s
MEPs are not fit to protect fundamental rights and the rule of law, they are
not the right people to chair the LIBE committee.”
On Tuesday,
the biggest group in the Parliament — the conservative European People’s Party
— struck an informal deal with the ECR under which they will swap control of
two of the committees allocated to them in the broader package. Under the deal,
the ECR would take control of the agriculture committee and the EPP would chair
the civil liberties committee.
“There was
quite a lot of dissatisfaction among colleagues about an ECR chair in the civil
liberties committee,” said one EPP MEP, granted anonymity to speak candidly
about internal discussions.
However, the
EPP’s deal with the ECR enraged the liberal Renew group (now the Parliament’s
fifth-largest grouping).
“Renew is
outraged to see EPP preferring making dirty deals instead of sticking to our
common lines,” a Renew official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to
speak freely.
The official
said the group could even withdraw its support for the EPP’s Ursula von der
Leyen as the next Commission president, and for Roberta Metsola as European
Parliament president, due to the deal.
Two people
with knowledge of a meeting that Metsola held Tuesday with the Renew group said
the liberal MEPs conditioned their support for her continuing as Parliament
president on Renew's getting the LIBE committee for themselves.
“We would
expect that EPP just says NO to ECR instead of serving them,” the Renew
official wrote in a message.
Who wants
what?
Under the
deal struck Monday, the EPP got the first pick of committees to chair, and
plumped for the one that deals with industry, research and energy, which is set
to play a mighty role in the next legislature as the European Commission
changes the Green Deal into more of an industrial strategy.
It also
asked for the foreign affairs committee, and for those covering fisheries,
budgetary control, constitutional affairs, and health.
The
Socialists and Democrats group’s first pick was the environment committee,
which has been led by Renew since 2019. The S&D also picked committees on
economic and monetary affairs, trade, regional development, and women’s rights
and gender equality.
The ECR
claimed the budget committee, which their Flemish MEP Johan Van Overtveldt
currently leads, as well as the petitions committee.
The Greens
want to keep the internal market committee that their German MEP Anna Cavazinni
currently leads, and also want to take control of the subcommittee on human
rights, currently led by S&D. Under the provisional deal, the Greens have
no vice-chairs of the environment committee.
The Left
will take the subcommittee on tax matters and the employment committee.
Louise
Guillot contributed reporting.
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