A majority of MEPs in the EPP Group on Wednesday 28 November supported the proposal of their German counterpart Sven Schulze, shadow rapporteur on the regulation on the coordination of social security systems, to challenge the rapporteur's negotiating mandate given to rapporteur Guillaume Balas (S&D, France).
On Tuesday 11 December, the Christian Democratic vote in Parliament's plenary session will be free, as the group is divided on this legislative dossier. The German, Polish, Hungarian and Danish delegations should support Mr Schulze's position, unlike the French and Belgian delegations in particular.
The strategy of some EPP MEPs would be to play the clock. A rejection of the mandate in plenary would mean a vote on the report in January, making it less and less likely that an inter-institutional agreement between the Council and the European Parliament would be reached before the end of the European Parliament’s mandate. However, according to several sources, a rejection of the negotiating mandate is unlikely. However, this manoeuvre makes it possible to postpone the inter-institutional negotiations until 2019.
A similar strategy had been applied by another German EPP member, Dennis Radtke. He had challenged Enrique Calvet Chambon's (ALDE, Spain) negotiating mandate on the report on the working conditions directive. Parliament had unambiguously confirmed the Spanish negotiating mandate (see EUROPE 12138).
With the European elections approaching, the German EPP delegation is hardening its position on social issues. It wishes to avoid giving arguments to the candidates of the Alternative für Deutschland. The far-right German party is riding on the themes of ‘social tourism’.
The ECR group and a large majority of ALDE MEPs (except the French and Spanish delegations) have also decided to reject Mr Balas' mandate.
As a reminder, the Regulation on the coordination of social security systems was adopted last week following a vote that concluded long and complex negotiations, often hampered by national considerations (see EUROPE 12141, 12140). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)