Everyone should know that: Conservative EPP openly pacts with the extreme-right ESN in the European Parliament
Dear friends,
Yesterday (Wednesday, 23 October 2024), our fears came true: For the first time ever, the group of the European People’s Party (EPP) has approved a motion by the far-right group ‘Europe of Sovereign Nations’ (ESN). The ESN is a new group, dominated by the German AfD, in which all the far-right extremists have joined forces who were too extreme even for the other right-wing group of Orban (PfE) and Meloni (ECR).
This is what happened:
The 2025 budget was up for vote. After long negotiations, the pro-European groups of EPP, S&D, Renew and Greens/EFA agreed on a compromise. This is the coalition that Ursula von der Leyen re-elected as Commission President in European Parliament precisely because she had made it clear that she did not want to make deals with the right and the far right.
But at the last moment, group spokesperson Manfred Weber (CSU, Germany) and the EPP group de facto withdrew their trust in von der Leyen (also EPP) and decided to break away from the alliance. The EPP MEPs voted in favour of the far-right ESN motion, which provided for more money for fences and walls at the external borders and illegal deportation centres.
It is important to note that not all EVP MEPs voted with the far-right, few abstained or were not present, and MEPs like Dennis Radtke from North Rhine-Westphalia was the only German MEP to vote against the ESN motion. This can be clearly seen at the end of this email in the graphic by our Green budget negotiator Rasmus Andresen.
Three points on what the EPP pact with the far-right ESN in the European Parliament means
- The Parliament is weakened – to the delight of the far right
However, the consequence of the EPP/ESN pact is that the entire budget resolution accompanying the numbers has been rejected because S&D, Renew and Greens/EFA could no longer agree to the motion, which had been amended to include far-right positions. Particularly piquant: the ESN also did not vote in favour of the overall motion. This was also clear from the outset, since they fundamentally reject the EU and its institutions. As expected, the EPP was left standing alone at the end and gained nothing. The only winners are the far-right, who are celebrating their success. The European Parliament’s negotiators are now entering negotiations with member states in a much weakened position because there is no parliamentary opinion. In this way, the EPP has massively weakened the Parliament for its own selfish gain, strengthened the right and thus done Europe a disservice.
- The EPP/ESN pact is a major problem for von der Leyen
The EPP pact with the ESN is also a major problem for EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. She was only able to secure her re-election with the support of the S&D, Renew and the Greens. She is also counting on this support for the upcoming election of the commissioners in December. If her own group now openly makes a pact with the ESN, the S&D, Renew and Greens have already made it clear: then the support for von der Leyen will be at an end. That would place von der Leyen completely under the thumb of the right wing of Meloni, Orban and the AfD for the next five years. Europe would be a different place after those five years. Von der Leyen must now remind Manfred Weber and her group of their responsibility.
- The Christian Democrats and conservatives are endangering European democracy
When we reflect on the consequences of the EPP pact with the ESN, it is crucial to broaden our view to include the strategy of the New Right, which is the same everywhere, from the USA to Italy, Hungary and Germany: they want to impose their vision of authoritarian and illiberal rule from within the institutions. To do this, they deliberately weaken the institutions that are supposed to protect democracy: the media, the courts, and also the parliaments and governments themselves.
What can be said and done is increasingly shifting, democracy is being weakened to such an extent that it can no longer address people’s concerns, but is instead in a constant state of defence.
It is no coincidence that the first pact between the EPP and ESN was on the budget. Because a weak, poorly financed Europe that has no money for its people benefits all those who want to abolish democracy.
In their bestseller ‘How Democracies Die’, authors Ziblatt and Levitsky analyse the end of democratic systems and come to the conclusion that it is not generals who initiate the end of democracies, but elected democrats who gradually dent and break the written and unwritten guard rails of democracy.
Indeed, in recent weeks, cooperation with Meloni’s ECR group has become increasingly close, which includes not only the post-fascist ‘Fratelli d’Italia’ but also the Polish PiS, which has systematically weakened the Polish constitutional state. The EPP, for example, supports the ECR candidate Fitto as one of their own, even though the ECR has refused to support von der Leyen.
Now the ball is in the court of the decent people in the CDU and the other Christian democratic and conservative parties in the EPP: If this was just the beginning of an open pact with the far right and a turning away from the democratic centre, then in five years we will no longer recognise the European Union and the people of Europe will increasingly lose the rights they have fought hard for.
And one thing is also clear: no one would be more pleased about this than the autocrats of this world, whether in the Kremlin or in Trump Tower.
What can we all do? It is crucial that we make the EPP’s behaviour visible to everyone. The German media, for example, hardly reported on yesterday’s vote.
That is why this email is sharing with everyone and spreading it further. The EPP can still back down, but it needs public pressure to do so.
With determined regards,
Yours, Alexandra Geese
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Voting behaviour (graphic by Rasmus Andresen MEP) for the
vote on AM 45, Budget 2025 Vote, 23.10.2024
