The ‘Party of European Socialists’ (PES) has pledged “never” to form a coalition with the far right at European level, in a declaration adopted on Saturday 4 May at an electoral event in Berlin.
“We will never cooperate nor form a coalition with the far right! This also means: no cooperation or alliances with ECR or ID in the European Parliament”, declared the main leaders of the Social Democratic and Socialist parties in the EU Member States, including the Prime Ministers of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, and Malta, Robert Abela, the Co-Chairs of the German SPD, Saskia Esken and Lars Klingbeil, the Secretary of the Italian PD, Elly Schlein, the First Secretary of the French PS, Olivier Faure, and the leader of the Dutch Labour Party, Frans Timmermans.
The signatories of the declaration call on the other European democratic political families to firmly reject any normalisation of the far right and any alliance with it. “We expect them to include this formally and unequivocally in their election manifestos [...] as we do in our PES manifesto”, they added, arguing that this was the only way to demonstrate to voters the existence of a “firewall against the far-right after the European elections”.
According to the signatory leaders, the rise of the far right is “a threat to this European project” and to the rights and well-being of European citizens. In countries where the far right is currently in power, workers’ rights, the right to strike, freedom of the press, the rule of law, women’s rights and the rights of LGBTI people are under threat, say the signatories. They point the finger at the conspiracy theories propagated by the far right, its desire to expel migrants and its complicity with the autocratic Russian regime.
On the contrary, in the face of societal challenges, the PES advocates inclusive, progressive solutions designed to provide “a better life for all”. It stresses the importance of European rules making the granting of European funds conditional on respect for the rule of law and fundamental values. And it advocates reform of the so-called ‘Article 7 TEU’ procedure on respect for the rule of law in EU countries in order to be able to react more quickly to attacks on democracy and fundamental rights (see EUROPE 13405/1).
And the Socialist and Social Democrat leaders concluded: “The far right’s ideology, programme, and policies are everything we fight against. Our values are irreconcilable with theirs”.
This categorical refusal by the PES leaders to form a coalition in the European Parliament with the ECR and ID groups after the European elections was welcomed by the candidate co-heading the list of European ecologists, Dutchman Bas Eickhout. It is a response to comments made by the candidate for the European People’s Party (EPP), the Christian Democrat Ursula von der Leyen, who had not ruled out a rapprochement with parties from the ‘European Conservatives and Reformists Party’ (ECR) (see EUROPE 13402/17).
See the Berlin Declaration: https://aeur.eu/f/c38 (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)