Far right offers Metsola third term in exchange for more power

 

Far right offers Metsola third term in exchange for more power

 

Patriots spots an opportunity to break the firewall once and for all

 

Politics

Eddy Wax

Euractiv

https://www.euractiv.com/news/far-right-offers-metsola-third-term-in-exchange-for-more-power/

 

The far-right Patriots for Europe have an offer for European Parliament President Roberta Metsola: If you give us more power, we’ll help you keep the job in 2027, when MEPs elect a new president.

 

Centre-right Metsola, as first reported by Euractiv, is chasing an unprecedented third term at the helm of the hemicycle until 2029, though her path to the presidency is narrowing. The Patriots, sensing leverage, are moving in.

 

Anders Vistisen, a senior Danish MEP in the Patriots for Europe group, told Euractiv’s Rapporteur on Tuesday that Metsola could get their 85 votes, but only if the firewall blocking his group from power is lifted.

 

“We have not ruled out giving Metsola a third term, but it depends,” Vistisen said in an interview in his parliamentary office in Brussels. “If we are part of a deal to get Metsola a third term, it means we want our representation in the Bureau,” he added.

 

The Bureau is the Parliament’s administrative decision-making body, comprising 14 vice-presidents, five quaestors, and the president. Being in the room would give the Patriots a realistic chance to start placing directors in important positions and shift the Parliament more to the right from the inside.

 

The group wants two vice-presidencies and a quaestor, arguing it is entitled to these roles. All the Bureau roles are barred to them under a cordon sanitaire that prevents the far-right from holding powerful posts representing the Parliament in the decision-making body.

 

The Socialists have voiced their opposition to Metsola’s ambitions to remain in the post. They say it would breach a secret arrangement between centrists made after the last EU elections in 2024, under which the role would pass to them in January 2027 for the next two and a half years.

 

If Socialists stick to their guns and present a rival candidate to Metsola, it could mean she would need to be carried by other groups, including the Patriots, liberal Renew, and the ECR, the conservative group.

 

Roles in the Bureau are decided by votes by all MEPs in the plenary of Parliament, meaning Metsola alone cannot decide to hand the Patriots what they want, even if she were willing to.

 

The Parliament presidency is also decided by plenary, although, like the vice-presidencies, the final choice tends to be decided before the votes after backroom dealing between political group leaders.