The race for influence over Brussels’ future agenda and key portfolios is on. Italy and Germany are at the head of the most influential political groups in the EU, but where is France?
The structure of the new European Parliament It is not finished yet, but it is already clear what delegations will dominate main political blocs. The ‘Euronews’ analysis shows that the german delegation is the most significant in the largest group of the block, the European People’s Party (EPP) of Ursula von der Leyenand also dominates the much smaller Green Party.
Italia will have a significant influence on the center-left socialists and the far-right Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), after the good results obtained at the polls by the Democratic party and the Brothers of Italy of Giorgia Meloni. But France is conspicuous by its absence in the large pan-European coalitions that determine how funds and power flow in the European Parliament.
Larger groups (and larger national delegations within them) can expect to get the first placessuch as committee presidencies and the right to have the pen on the most important legislation.
Overall, the ‘Euronews’ analysis assigns all the big gamesexcept for a few dozen of the 720 MEPs, to one of the seven major political groups which are likely to emerge from conversations that will take place in the coming weeks.
LosRepublicans French, the center-right party of Charles de Gaulle and Nicolas Sarkozy, only have six MEPs in the EPP. On Wednesday, the president of Los Republicanos, Eric Ciotti, He locked himself in his Paris headquarters and rejected requests from several senior party officials for him to resign..
President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist list won 13 European deputies, making it dominant within the liberal Renew Europe group, but Macron was defeated by Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rallywhich forced him to call early legislative elections.
On the contrary, the results are good news for Polandwhich can boast of having a large representation of 23 MEPs in the EPP and 20 in the ECR.
After many years of democratic regression, the center-right government of Donald Tusk He took power last year, to great applause from Brussels. The promising results are likely to give an additional boost to Warsaw’s influence in the EU, as leaders of Berlin y Paris They lick the wounds of an electoral defeat.
There is still much to decide
Although the polls closed on Sunday, much remains to be decided. EU groups They have not yet formally decided on their composition.which may mean that they are forged new alliances or problematic partners are discarded.
The European Parliament will decide whether to retain the four MEPs from Mark Rutte’s VVD party, which formed a controversial coalition with the Dutch far right.
The five Dutch and German lawmakers from the pan-European Volt party could choose to stick with the Greens or opt for Renew Europe.
There is a special uncertainty about how the extremes could come together.
Los 30 legislators from the far-right National Group They constitute the largest party in the European Parliament, and could grow even more if they were joined by the few from Reconquista, another French party that is now in dispute with its own leader.
They are likely to dominate any far-right grouping, and some hope they can too sumar al Fidesz is HungarianViktor Orbán’s increasingly authoritarian ruling party, or the Polish Law and Justice (PiS).
Although numerically the radical right can boast of having more than 100 MEPs, It’s unclear if that will translate into an extremist supergroup.or if they would access influential positions within the Parliament administration.
exist important differences of opinion between Warsaw and Budapest on key political issues such as Ukraine.
The German AfD was expelled from the European far-right group Identity and Democracy after its main candidate, Maximilian Krahmade comments perceived as sympathizing with Nazi-era SS paramilitaries.
Likewise, the 60 leftist MEPs of Parliament have yet to decide how to meet. There are some important leftist delegations looking for a home, such as the alliance led by Germany’s Sahra Wagenknecht, the Italian Five Star Movement and the Smer party of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, recently suspended from the socialist group.
