The European parliamentary elections are happening soon. And if you have been reading the media you will probably have heard noise about a surge of the “far-right” and the possibility of Ursula von der Leyen working with them to shift Europe to the right on migration and climate.
And it true that across Europe right-wing parties are on the rise and are set to gain seats. But the issue is also considerably more complex. You see in the European parliament you do not have a set of coherent European parties with a clear platform. Rather everyone votes for their own national parties who then move to form parliamentary groups with parties that have similar ideologies. To form such a group you need 23 MEPs from 7 different countries so it’s no easy task. The current groups are:
EPP: Christian Democrats
S&D: Social Democrats
Renew: Liberal (ranging from socially liberal to liberal-conservative)
Greens-EFA: Green and regionalist parties
ECR: National Conservatives
ID: Right-wing Populists
GUE-NGL: Left-wing populists (ranging from socialists to communists)
Non-Inscrits: Parties that aren’t part of any group
As you can see the “far-right” that the media talks about are mainly represented by the ECR and ID. But in addition there are a number of right-wing parties in Non-Inscrits that were either kicked out of a group or couldn’t join any such as Orban’s Fidesz. Then there are parties that are much closer to ECR/ID but are still in EPP such as Slovenia’s SDS party and even the Czechian ANO party who’s said to be an ally of Orban is part of Renew.
So in essence the Europarliamentary groups aren’t homogenous and don’t always show the full picture. Often these tend to be more alliances of convenience when there are overlapping views. Furthermore pretty much every European election there will be a reshuffle of alliances. Since political parties in countries often come and go there will always be new discussions on alliances as some parties gain seats, others completely disappear or others suddenly have a different ideological course.
To make things even more complicated the European right-wing has never really been fully united. And that has especially been the case since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Hence why there are currently two right-wing groupings. Unsurprisingly when you have a group of nationalist parties representing nations with different interests it is harder to unite them on issues. Nevertheless as isues like climate and migration have taken on a European form of discussion there has been a lot of talks and push for a united right in the European parliament. And while it is unlikely that all the right-wing parties will unite I do think we will see a merger of the biggest players in the ECR and ID alongside Fidesz that will likely cause a significant reshuffle among the right. But first some history.
The historical right’s factions in the European parliament
Historically the groups to the right of the EPP in the European parliament can be distinguished into three traditions.
The centre-right anti-federalists
The euroskeptics
The nationalist right or “far-right”
To simplify about 3 decades of European political history the right-leaning groupings were essentially divided between the ECR who represented anti-federalist centre-right such as the British conservatives, the EFD dominated by UKIP who represented anti-migrant euroskeptics and the “far-right” led by the French National Front (now called National Rally or RN) who still had too little representation to form a group.
The 2019 election however changed everything for the right in significant ways. First there was Brexit which removed all the parties of Britain from the parliament completely changing the composition of some of these groups as most groups tend to have their power structure revolving around the party of a large country and Britain was certainly among the larger ones. Second the Syrian migrant crisis had given new life for the “far-right” parties like RN, PVV and AfD who would now get enough seats to form their own proper group called Identity and Democracy.
With brexit the British Conservative Party which had been the power broker of the ECR left parliament which caused all the power in the ECR to be concentrated into the Polish Law and Justice instead. With UKIP gone the EFD dissolved as a group and the parties in that grouping scattered between the ECR and ID. Right-wing groups like Forum, Sweden Democrats and Finns also joined the ECR again moving the grouping much closer to an actual right-wing populist grouping.
As a result you ended up with two groupings that are now both defined by populism, euroskepticism and anti-migration politics. ECR with parties such as Law and Justice and Sweden Democrats and ID with parties such at Alternative for Germany and League. Both now seen as “far-right”
That brings us to the current situation.
The great merger
At this point with the exception of their historical origins there seemed to be very little disagreements between the ECR and ID. Arguably whatever disagreements there actually were was more likely to be within the groups themselves such as Vox being strongly against Catalan independence while the NVA has been supportive of it. Alongside this Fidesz a party with a large seat count had also been suspended from the EPP. A merger between ECR, ID and Fidesz seemed like a no-brainer but it seemed that the possibility would be delayed until the next election.
And then the Russian invasion of Ukraine happened.
Russia had always been the issue that divided the ECR and ID. The ECR historically was anti-federalist mainly because of their atlanticist position in which they favored a stronger alliance with the US in contrast to the continentalist approach. Meanwhile ID in contrast has been non-interventionist and have taken a skeptical stance against sanctions on Russia as well as the US unipolar order. With the Russian invasion this became the number 1 issue and if a merger between the two won’t happen the invasion is the main reason. However with Ukraine fatigue setting in 2 years later and with Poland’s souring relationship during the Law and Justice government with Ukraine over grain export it seems that the largest players in the ECR are becoming more flexible to work with ID.
The most optimistic argument for a merger is that both Law and Justice and Meloni’s Brother of Italy which will be the two large power blocs in the ECR are open to collaborate with Orban as well as many parties in ID. There are some parties within the ECR that have raised objections to Fidesz joining which include ODS, Sweden Democrats and AUR but they are minor parties and together may not even have as much as Fidesz itself. They furthermore have little else to go to if they decide to leave the ECR so they are not quite in the position to dissent.
The European right have a clear goal in this European election and that is to become powerful enough in order to shift the EPP, which has long relied on a grand coalition with S&D, to the right on migration and climate. Collaborations between the centre-right and the ECR has already been happening with migration deals but these aren’t enough. Political figures like Morawiecki and Meloni are well aware that they need to grow their grouping more if they want to make change. And in the ID that sentiment also seems to grow as the party has been trying to soften its image by distancing itself from AfD and kicking out parties that are too Pro-Russian. There is also the question on how serious their tough stance on “Pro-Russian” parties actually are as Greek Solution is still an ECR member.
That brings us to what I would describe for the sake of having a name for it as the radical right (far-far-right?), the political parties deemed too radical for both the ECR and ID which would include parties like AfD (Flügel faction), FvD, Mi Hazank among others. These nationalist groups in fact have already been approaching each other and meeting up. With AfD set to becomes the second largest German party they will have a large base of seats to form a whole new grouping with what you could call the rejects of the right.
In addition to all this there’s also a new faction in European politics emerging that could only be described as left-populist or left-conservative which could also be attempting to form their own grouping. Combining left-wing populist economic policy while also having more anti-migrant views and being anti-western in foreign policy.
With that said here are my predictions of what a potential reshuffling of the groups would look like.
The United Right bloc:
If you were to ask me if the merger will happen I would say it’s still 50/50 and depends on a number of factors. But ultimately what makes it seem possible is that the largest factions of ECR, ID (and Fidesz) all seem open to the idea. The ECR may lose a number of dissenting parties in the process but those losses would without a doubt be made up by the seats added by the ID parties.
The ID would have the most to gain with the merger as currently they have been treated as the big outsider. And with them dropping AfD they are cutting off one of the largest partners in the entire grouping. Such a strategy seems too unlikely to just be a matter of principle to not be an attempt at rapprochement with the ECR. Meanwhile the ECR would benefit by bolstering its numbers with Fidesz and a salonfähig ID and thus put pressure on the EPP. On the other hand it could also backfire as while the ECR has been more open and accepted by figures like von der Leyen ID still suffers from a cordon sanitaire. And adding ID parties to the rank could sour the mainstream acceptibility ECR has been looking for.
Should this alliance actually come into fruition it would likely include FdL,RN, PiS, Fidesz, Lega, Vox, PVV, VB, FPÖ, DP, DF, DD/Æ, SPD, EKRE, Most and Chega. This would based on very rough projections put the grouping between 110–120 seats and make it the third biggest group by a significant margin. These are the parties I think would be most likely to work together and unite under issues like migration in spite of other disagreements. There are also a couple of parties that could join but it’s unclear if they’ll make the threshold like Independent Ireland or the Slovak National Party but I could see them join if they make it.
The ECR dissenters and wild cards:
While Morawiecki and Meloni seem more open to the idea there are a number of ECR parties that find the divisions over Ukraine to be too much of a dealbreaker to work with. In particular the Czech ODS, Swedish SD, Flemish NVA and Romanian AUR have all stated they would not join a grouping with Fidesz. Other group like the Latvian NA keep the door open but expect Orban to soften his stance in favor of Ukraine.
Parties like SaS, NVA and ODS are arguably acceptable enough by the EPP to let them join their ranks and will likely do so in the event of a merger but parties like AUR and SD who are seen as considerably more right-wing populist will likely not be accepted in the EPP nor do they have enough seats for their own group which case they would become part of the non-inscrits where they will have a lot less power. This alone might pressure them enough to stay in the united right group instead. Again the existence of parties sympathetic to Russia like Greek Solution didn’t seem to deter them so I don’t see how Fidesz would.
Then there’s internal party divisions. NVA who I don’t see joining with Fidesz also would not join because of VB which suffers from a cordon sanitaire in Belgian politics, Reconquête which is already a member of ECR could cause issues with Le Pen’s RN as Le Pen has been unwilling to work with Zemmour, Brothers of Italy and Lega at least seem friendly enough as coalition partners to join one European group at least.
There are some in which I don’t really know if they’ll join the group or not and consider them wild cards. The Finns haven’t openly opposed Fidesz but made a party secretary delete a tweet supporting Fidesz in the ECR, Latvia First a new up and coming right-wing party in Latvia may be more lenient than National Alliance for such a group but it’s still a Baltic party and they do not want to be associated with Russian sympathies, SGP is more of a Christian Democratic party and while socially very conservative don’t really belong in the category of right-wing nationalists. There are some parties that have ties with ECR and ID such as the Cypriot ELAM, aformentioned Greek Solution and S.O.S Romania which might end up being blocked from joining the new group due to being too radical.
But in a best case scenario where a number of these parties choose to join the merger the united right group could easily grow about 20–30 seats and end up with around 140 and potentially beating the S&D as second largest party.
The AfD bloc:
As I mentioned it seems that the biggest parties in the ID such as League and National Rally are distancing themselves from AfD. This comes as the AfD has been and taken over by a faction known as Der Flügel. While this faction has dissolved in name the people who ran the grouping has enough control over the party to have steered it into a large number of controversies to the point it has become a politically toxic party for even the ID.
Still distancing yourself from a party that is projected to win over 15 seats and be the second largest in Germany will take a big chunk out of the grouping which is why I think it’s a move to make ID palatable to an actual merger. That said now you have AfD one of the largest single parties in the European parliament without a group. But with almost 15 seats they have enough power to potentially form their own with blackjack and hookers.
If the AfD wants to form such a group they will likely have to look for the radical right parties that have been rejected by ID for essentially being too explicitly Pro-Russian or just too wacky and schizo (Looking at you Thierry).
Such a grouping would most likely along with AfD itself include KON, Mi Hazank, Forum, V and NIKI. This would be well over 23 MEPs but they still need parties from 7 countries. One option is Republika however they originally split from an open neo-nazi party so they could be too extreme. Similar issue with the Cypriot ELAM.
Parties like S.O.S Romania and Greek Solution could join if they’re rejected from the united right merger although the latter wouldn’t help them get an extra country. A couple of these parties are also barely on the treshold so whether they make it is also still up in the air.
It’s also possible that some parties within ID might be sympathetic towards AfD and choose to defect alongside them. But that would really only be some of the more hardline parties like VB and EKRE and I see neither of them really doing that as VB is close to the RN/PVV sphere of influence and EKRE is too baltic to side with parties that have too much of a Pro-Russian reputation.
Ultimately the AfD group is possible but will depend on how many parties get rejected and it will be the smallest group. But it will push the overton window to the right.
A left-conservative group?:
One peculiar group that has been gaining notability in European politics is what I could only describe as left-conservatives or the old left. These are left-wing populists that have rejected social progressivism and instead embrace socialist economics combined with populist stances on migration, NATO, Russia, Palestine, etc. Figures like George Galloway, Sarah Wagenknecht, Mick Wallace among others. In addition there are also Social Democratic parties in eastern europe that are still more socially conservative than their more dominant socially liberal counterparts in the S&D such as the Slovakian Smer or Romanian PSD. As a result some of these left-conservative parties have been politically homeless as they neither really belong in S&D nor GUE/NGL and could possibly attempt to form their own.
However it is incredibly unlikely that they will get the numbers they need in order to make this happen. The core parties I could see for this group would include Bündnis Sarah Wagenknecht, Smer, Hlas and KKE however that would only be about 14 projected seats from 3 countries. PSD could potentially join but only if they got suspended from S&D. They could snatch possible sympathetic parties from Die Linke such as Independents 4 Change, LFI and Stačilo! but I doubt any of them would just leave Die Linke for such a group. If I really wanted to scrape the bottom of the barrel they could try to get the populist M5S to join their ranks if only because M5S has been stuck in non-inscrits for years now and may be desperate for a populist group but I doubt it. So for now this idea is not looking likely.
Anti-migration bloc:
While these parties may not see eye to eye on enough issues to form an actual bloc together they would still be able to work together on the issue of immigration and push the European parliament into tougher migration laws.
Let’s consider the hypothetical blocs I made that have anti-migration stances as part of their platform and let’s rough ball the amount of seats they could have:
United Right bloc (ECR/ID/Fidesz): 125 seats
AfD bloc: 29 seats
ECR dissidents (SD/AUR/ODS): 19 seats
RW parties with unclear status: 16 seats
Left-conservatives (BSW/Smer/Hlas): 11 seats
Together that would amount to 200 seats. Together with the projected EPP 160 seats there would be 460 seats or a supermajority to push for tougher migration. This alone shows how much the migration debate has moved towards the right and how high the demand is for voters.
But ultimately this entire article is filled with conjecture and speculation and again this entire time I am talking under the assumption that there’s coherent blocs here which is not the case. The EPP could have a large part of its faction straight up refuse to work with the right, the United Right merger could never happen and we’ll be stuck with ECR and ID as separate entities again, the AfD may prefer to just sit in non-inscrits or just not have enough allies to form a group. All of this has mostly just been a thought experiment for fun.
However I do urge the right to work together and unite. Whether in an official united grouping or as an informal bloc. Because uniting and forming a power base within the parliament is going to be the only way to pressure the EPP and cause change on a European level.
