Volt EU lawmakers pick Greens over Renew’s soft hand with far-right

5 months ago 12

The five newly elected MEPs from the pan-European movement Volt have recommended that party members stay with the Greens’ group due to worries that the liberal Renew Europe group is too soft with member parties’ dealings with the far-right.

Party members have until Sunday night (23 June) to vote on the final decision.

On election night (9 June), it became clear that the EU politics newcomer Volt had scored major wins, with two seats in the Netherlands and three seats won in Germany. In 2019, Volt got only one MEP elected, from Germany.

That same night, Dutch MEP Anna Strolenberg, co-lead candidate of Volt Netherlands, told Euractiv they were exploring the possibility of joining either the Greens group or liberal Renew Europe, one of the decisive factors being “in which group we will get the best committees”.

But German MEP Damian Boeselager now confirmed to Euractiv that the decision of the five elected MEPs has been to recommend that members join the Greens group. The final decision is taken by all Volt members, who have until Sunday night to cast their votes.

“An important factor is the fact that ANO (a populist Czech party) and VVD (supporting a right-wing populist government in the Netherlands) are facing almost no repercussions in the Renew group,” Boeselager said.

ANO’s rapprochement with populist and far-right values has been a thorn in the side of Renew for a long while, but no formal action has been taken.

VVD’s issue is more recent, as they entered a governing coalition with the far-right Dutch PVV party in the last month.

Following the coalition agreement, Renew President Valérie Hayer called for the exclusion of VVD, but the biggest faction within the group, ALDE, which is home to VVD, has opposed it. For now, it seems the Dutch delegation will not be kicked out.

Volt’s decision, though still not final, deals a heavy blow to Renew, which, after suffering heavy losses in the EU elections, is hoping to gather new members and prevent the hard-right ECR group from snatching their third place in the Parliament.

A pro-European federalist party created in 2017 in reaction to Brexit and growing populism, Volt is organised as an umbrella for national parties with the same name and branding across all EU countries.

The party, described as a “movement,” ran in the European elections in 15 EU countries with a unified program and campaign. It has seats in the national parliaments of Bulgaria, Cyprus, and the Netherlands.

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]