The European People’s Party (EPP) deepens its alliance with the extreme right. The most recent example occurred this Thursday, with the vote on a key law in the European green agenda. Conservative MEPs in the European Parliament have pushed forward, thanks to ultras and far-right groups, a series of amendments that weaken the law against deforestation, an essential regulation that seeks to protect large forests, also outside the EU. This Thursday’s vote takes place in the midst of the dana crisis in Spain – which mainly affects Valencia -, a consequence, in part, of the global climate crisis.
This gesture of approximation of the traditional conservatives to the ultra forces of the European Parliament occurs in the middle of the process of blocking by the EPP the vote of the Spanish minister Teresa Ribera to become number two of the next European Commission, with a great vice presidency green and the powerful Competition portfolio. Ribera, the great social democratic piece in the new community Executive and with a marked environmental profile, has been the focus of ultra attacks for some time. The PP now seeks to hold her responsible for the management of the damage that Valencia suffered to cover up the failures of the regional government, in the hands of the PP.
The negotiations between the groups to evaluate Ribera as vice president in the next community Executive are paralyzed, although the dialogue continues to set a voting date that gives the approval to all the vice presidents of the Commission. The EPP – whose leader, Manfred Weber, also does not forgive Ribera for his key support for the Nature Restoration Law that the German sought to overthrow last year and which came out barely, largely due to the impetus of the Spanish presidency on duty from the EU—demands that the minister give explanations for the damage in Congress (something that Ribera had already planned to do next Wednesday) and that she commit to resigning if she is prosecuted for the management of the catastrophe.
The socialists practically considered broken the pact they had reached to evaluate the Spanish and the rest of the vice presidential candidates together, so that no one would have an advantage over a commissioner from another party, but they refuse to support the one appointed by the Italian far-right Giorgia Meloni. , which the EPP has included in the package negotiated with social democrats and liberals.
In this context comes the movement of the popular towards groups further to the right regarding the law against deforestation, which includes measures for the restoration of nature and adaptation to a continent that is warming at twice the speed of the rest of the planet. It is not the only area in which the approximation occurs. Previously, there have been other alliances on issues such as support for creating deportation centers outside the EU or the parliamentary resolution to recognize the opposition candidate Edmundo González as president-elect of Venezuela, a step that has not been adopted by any EU country. so as not to repeat the mistake of recognizing Juan Guaidó as president in charge of Venezuela in 2019 and closing any avenue for negotiation of the crisis in that country.
New right-wing majority
In the European Parliament, the alliance of the EPP with the ultra forces is now becoming popularly known as the “Venezuela coalition”, in reference to the agreement – ​​strongly promoted by the Spanish PP – reached in September with the extreme right families to carry out the resolution on Edmundo González, who according to the minutes shown by the opposition, won the Venezuelan elections in July against Nicolás Maduro. But in that case the agreement was not legislative, nor even politically binding. Now, with the green law, yes.
In the case of the amendments to water down the law on deforestation – which the European Commission has already proposed postponing for a year, after pressure from the affected countries, the lobbies and the ultras—, this is the first legislative agreement that goes ahead with the alliance between the EPP and the entire extreme right, without whose votes it would not have been successful, in view of the very tight majorities for the amendments. The European conservatives of the German Manfred Weber have dynamited the cordon sanitaire that they had maintained these years.
The flirtations of the head of the conservatives with the extreme right are increasing, despite the fact that in Germany the taboo on agreeing or approaching ultras, such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD), is still maintained. This formation is part of Soberanistas, one of those groups that has supported the Venezuela resolution, that of the deportation centers and the amendments to weaken the deforestation law.
In fact, some of the amendments have only been passed (by a difference of three or five votes) thanks to AfD MEPs. “I have not played with the extreme right, I tried to talk to all my colleagues and look for ways,” the EPP’s chief negotiator, the German Christine Schneider, has defended herself, arguing that it is not up to them who ends up supporting their proposals or not.
The chapter with the law on deforestation – which Social Democrats, Liberals and Greens do not rule out challenging due to problems with the vote – is one more example that the traditional center majority that has supported the European Parliament for decades, can be completely broken this legislature. The EPP emerged very strengthened from the European elections in June, in which the extreme right also gained power. Now, conservatives can look to both sides of the chamber to see who they want to advance their plans with.
“When it comes to the first relevant environmental laws, the EPP immediately joins the factions further to the right,” warned Austrian Social Democrat MEP Günther Sild, member of the Environment Committee. “Not much of the Green Pact will remain like this,” he added.
What was voted this Thursday represents a profound transformation of the law. If it had been for the EPP, it would have even led to the destruction de facto of a key environmental regulation, since what the conservatives were seeking was to practically empty the regulation of its content, as other environmental groups and organizations have insistently denounced.
If it has not reached that point, it has been due to an agreement in extremis that the Renew liberals managed last night to withdraw the most controversial amendments in exchange for guaranteeing that they would not oppose it in the final vote on the legislative proposal. But this one, in any case, has come out in a very tight way – some key amendments by just three votes difference – which has only been achieved by the massive support of the most ultra forces in the chamber.
“It is the first time that the alliance between the EPP and the entire extreme right has been formed for a legislative text,” the liberal MEP Pascal Canfin, who negotiated the mitigation of the conservative amendments, warned in a press conference. This new step, which also comes at a critical moment in the negotiations to confirm Ursula von der Leyen’s new Commission, shows that the EPP is playing with both decks, something that traditional pro-European forces are not willing to allow. as they claim.
“The EPP has to choose. He cannot govern the EU with the extreme right to empty the European projects and then with us so that we support the Von der Leyen Commission,” Canfin warned. “We reached the moment of truth, we began to see clear signs that if [el PPE] does not change, there will be a political crisis in Europe, something that we do not want and that we cannot allow with Trump, China and Putin,” the liberal MEP warned.
