Germany’s centre right CDU warms to Italy’s hard-right

Collaborations with far-right parties remain a touchy subject in Germany, but Jens Spahn, a leading lawmaker of the German CDU (European People’s Party), told Euractiv that it is time to normalise the hard-right Italian ruling party, Fratelli d’Italia.

For months, the centre-right EPP has been toying with closer cooperation with Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia (FdI) party, part of the hard-right ECR group, which European centrists usually shun.

This is particularly controversial for the EPP’s largest member, the German CDU of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, as due to the country’s past, far-right parties remain behind a strict cordon sanitaire.

While the Italian party has been labelled as ‘post-fascist’, this does not seem to concern the German party as in comments to Euractiv, Jens Spahn, one of the CDU’s leading national lawmakers, signalled that his party had lost its reservations.

“The ‘firewall’  – that potential partners of the EPP must be pro-European, pro-NATO, pro-rule of law and pro-Ukraine – runs to the right of Meloni’s party in the European Parliament,” Spahn, a member of the CDU leadership board, said.

While considering Germany’s far-right AfD party and its European group, ID, off limits, he believes Meloni’s case is different.

“She is already working with 26 EU heads of government (…), and I have not heard anyone – including the [German] chancellor [Olaf Scholz] – say that they will not work with her (…),” Spahn said.

He is not afraid of backlash and “wannabe incitement campaigns by the left,” as the German social democrats (SPD/S&D) have warned voters about EPP collaborations with the far right.

“Nobody knows [socialist lead candidate] Nicolas Schmit and [SPD lead candidate] Katarina Barley – not in Germany and not in Europe,” Spahn said.

“Accusing us of wanting to collaborate with right-wing extremists is the last bogeyman that endangered leftist parties cling to.”

A more right-wing EU – without the Greens

This exemplifies the evolution of the CDU, which Merz has moved to the right and it also offers a glimpse of Europe’s future.

The CDU is on track to retain the Commission presidency and retake the chancellery in 2025 after losing it to the SPD in 2021, putting it in charge of two of the most important European offices.

Spahn’s ideas could play an important role. Previously dubbed “the man who could replace [Angela] Merkel as chancellor”, the former health minister appears set for an important office in 2025.

His post-election plans reveal a vision of a much more conservative EU after the elections.

Spahn backs a “centrist” post-election deal with the S&D and Renew Europe but said “the Greens should not be part of it”, as he called their EU group “dogmatic”.

This puts him in opposition to the CDU’s EU delegation leader, Daniel Caspary, who did not rule out a deal with the Greens.

Spahn: EPP must claim climate portfolio

Spahn’s preferred outcome would be business-oriented policies, including a pause on green regulation, and he is not afraid to claim the industry, competition and even climate policy Commission portfolios for the EPP.

“[Former Climate Commissioner] Frans Timmermans has shown how much damage can be done, and we must prevent that at all costs,” he added.

Especially the de-facto ban on the sale of new combustion cars from 2035, passed under Timmermans, is seen sceptically by the CDU.

Aside from championing collaboration on migration and security policy, Spahn—a critic of multiculturalism—also sees a blind spot in social policy that he wants Europe to address.

“Europe should finally take joint action against reactionary Islamist fundamentalism,” he added. “In some European cities, it poses an ever-greater threat to freedom (…).”

“Grand European bargain” with Macron 

Spahn promised that a smoothly running Franco-German engine would back all this up once the CDU is in power, as he criticised Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s problematic relationship with French President Macron.

He dreams of a “grand European bargain”: Berlin would make concessions on integrating EU capital markets that some Germans eye with suspicion.

In return, France would move towards an EU defence union, which he suggested Paris is more sceptical about, including expanding its nuclear deterrence to Europe.

“We need such a big step for Europe, like the introduction of the euro or the Maastricht Treaty,” Spahn said.

The matter is personal for Spahn. He worked closely on the Euro crisis as an undersecretary in the finance ministry, then led by Wolfgang Schäuble, who died in December.

“[He] said to me shortly before he died: ‘Take more care of Paris.’”

[Edited by Aurélie Pugnet/Alice Taylor]

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