With the European elections already underway, the signs are good for Europe’s far-right parties, but it is unclear how they will be organised in the next European Parliament.
According to the europeelects.eu website, the ‘Identity and Democracy’ (ID) group could obtain 69 elected members if the parties that currently make up the group are taken into account - i.e. without the AfD - but this figure could rise to 84 if it includes new parties.
Around 80 new seats will go to parties that sit with the ECR and ID, or are affiliated to them, which could allow ID to grow. The Dutch PVV, which is part of the ID party but has not previously had any elected members in the European Parliament, could win 7 seats, according to exit polls on Thursday 6 June. Parties linked to ID could emerge in the lead in France and Austria.
According to an official close to the subject, negotiations to create a group will only begin once the electoral results are known, depending on the number of MEPs elected in each party, in order to see what is feasible. The ID group’s inaugural meeting is scheduled for 3 July.
One of the post-election questions concerns whether or not it would be possible to create a single group merging the conservative ECR and ID groups. On Wednesday 5 June, the leader of the Dutch nationalist PVV party, Geert Wilders, announced that he would like to be part of a single right-wing group at European level, which would include the ECR and ID.
According to the official, a large group is not going to happen, not least because “you always need someone nastier than you”.
One of the leaders of the Rassemblement National (RN), Marine Le Pen, has also attempted a rapprochement with Giorgia Meloni, President of the Italian Council and of the ‘European Conservative Party’. But a researcher contacted by Agence Europe thought it unlikely that the RN would leave the ID group to join Giorgia Meloni’s ECR. In his view, a rapprochement would be in the interests of the French party, but not of the Italian leader.
What’s more, it’s not clear who, between Ms Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, the RN’s president and head of list, will take part in the negotiations to create a group.
The return of the ‘Alternativ für Deutschland’ (AfD) party - without the AfD’s main candidate, Maximilian Krah - to the ID group will also be under discussion. The official close to the matter told Agence Europe that the AfD’s objective was to be part of an ID or enlarged ID group.
The RN, which initiated the exclusion of the AfD, may therefore have to make concessions. The official pointed out that, while the RN has denounced the German party’s ‘remigration programme’ (expulsion of foreigners), the Austrian party ‘Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs’ (FPÖ) shares this idea. In addition, this week, the head of the Lega list in several Italian constituencies, Roberto Vannacci, a former soldier, made homophobic remarks. The Rassemblement National would therefore be unable to do without its current partners, at the risk of ending up as non-attached Members.
“In Brussels, there’s no such thing as purity. There is always a need to compromise. You have to meet each other halfway”, explained this official.
Furthermore, according to him, the German party does not want Mr Krah as part of its delegation to Parliament, or as part of the group. Mr Krah would then sit as a non-attached Member or join another group. According to Politico, Mr Krah would like to create a new group to the right of the ID group. However, this would seem to be a difficult ambition to realise.
ID is also said to be considering the Fidesz party of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose elected representatives ended the previous term of office sitting as non-attached members, having been expelled from the EPP group.
Furthermore, the ID group could once again face a cordon sanitaire imposed by the other parties, which would prevent its members from obtaining positions of responsibility within Parliament. In 2019, the Parliament’s main political groups agreed to prevent far-right MEPs from obtaining chairmanships of parliamentary committees.
According to one European official, if the ID group remains of the same type, a new cordon sanitaire should be put in place, but this would prove much more difficult if the ECR and ID groups were merged. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant, with Mathieu Bion)