The Brief – The EPP game and Meloni’s challenges

Italy’s conservative Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has for months been politically courted by the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) and recently by far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

The EPP wants to use Meloni’s European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, or rather, its “healthy elements”, to have an alternative majority in the European Parliament.

Should the EU centre-right disagree on a specific policy file within a likely parliamentary coalition with the EU socialists (S&D) and the liberals (Renew), the EPP can seek majorities on the right – and Meloni can offer a solution. 

On the right, Le Pen dreams of a big right-wing bloc in which ECR and far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) groups join forces, becoming the second–largest group in Parliament. 

Several ΕU leaders have described Meloni as “constructive” at EU Council gatherings. This constructiveness will be needed as the post-election challenges will require a lot of skill and manoeuvring.

If a big right-bloc is formed with ECR-ID forces, Meloni’s first challenge will be to ensure its unity.  

Both ECR and ID parties want “national sovereignty” to be boosted, which often makes it more difficult to find common ground on some EU issues. It will be hard for Meloni to offer the EPP a steady and rock-solid bloc. 

A second challenge is the numbers. For Meloni to be able to offer a safe majority to the EPP, her bloc will need to be bigger than the projected 224 seats of the EU socialists and the liberals together.

According to current Europe Elects projections, if all ECR and ID members join forces, they could control 143 seats. With Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party  – currently non-attached – the number goes up to 152, still well below the joint socialist-liberal tally.

Together with the EPP, they would have 332 out of 720 seats, a few dozen short of a majority. And there comes the third challenge: 

The EU socialists and liberals have made it clear that they will never accept Meloni’s group as part of a pro-EU coalition, with even less appetite for Le Pen’s ID.

For her part, Meloni has said she wants the EU socialists in the opposition, drawing clear battle lines. 

The liberals insist on a pro-EU coalition, unless they change course.

In the past, some of them voted with Meloni’s ECR and the EPP, especially on agricultural issues, and no one made a big deal about it.

But a Meloni-led bloc that includes Le Pen will be tough to sell to liberal voters, especially for Emmanuel Macron’s electorate, which sees Le Pen as his number one foe. 

To appease EU liberals, Meloni will have to present an “acceptable” political profile of her bloc, probably getting closer to the centre. 

However, that might not be enough for the liberals, it could also alienate some of her own voters, and will be seen as a potential threat to the EPP itself, as it captures the centre-right side of the political spectrum. In this case, the EPP may fall in its own trap.

Ursula von der Leyen might want to have some votes from the ECR to be re-elected in the European Parliament. And she may well get them. 

But the hard-right being a viable “2.0 alternative” in future policymaking still seems to be far away. 

The Roundup

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Tuesday that Madrid will not admit changes to the 1967 border lines that were not previously agreed between Israel and the Palestinian state, which Madrid officially recognised on the same day in a coordinated move with Ireland and Norway.

At the Agrifish Council on Monday, the European Union’s agriculture ministers announced their desire to strengthen crisis management tools, calling for more budgets and greater flexibility.

European Union countries approved a law on Monday to impose methane emissions limits on Europe’s oil and gas imports from 2030, pressuring international suppliers to cut leaks of the potent greenhouse gas.

The draft law on detecting and reporting online child sexual abuse material, sparking criticism and tension in the past, remains one of the important yet incomplete tech files of the EU, highlighting its significance as it risks being abandoned amid legislative gridlock.

Top French candidates for June’s European elections showed just how split they were over the recognition of a Palestinian state in a TV debate on Monday night, with the left-of-centre being clearly in favour and the rest saying the time was not right yet.

Right-wing arguments that Europe would need to sacrifice climate ambitions to boost competitiveness are groundless and increasingly rejected by business leaders, the head of the German members of the Greens/EFA group at the European Parliament told Euractiv.

For transport related news, make sure to check out this week’s Transport Brief.

Look out for…

• Commissioner Janez Lenarčič participates in virtual USAID Donor Roundtable on Gaza on Wednesday.
• Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski in Astana, Kazakhstan, meets PM Olzhas Bektenov on Wednesday.
• EU Green Week Brussels Conference Wednesday-Thursday.
• Foreign Affairs Council (Trade) on Thursday.

Views are the author’s

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic/Alice Taylor]