The Populars formally welcome 14 new members to the EU Parliament. EPP group rises to 190 seats

Brussels – The European People’s Party (EPP) strikes a blow and welcomes into its ranks a new handful of MEPs to bring the group’s membership in the 10th term of the European Parliament to 190. This is what was decided at the constituent meeting of the centre-right group in the EU Parliament, which at its first session today (June 18), approved the entry of six new national delegations totalling 14 MEPs, from the Netherlands to Denmark, from Germany to the Czech Republic, to the seven Hungarian MEPs of the centre-right opposition led precisely by their leader Péter Magyar.

 

With 190 members, the EPP group thus consolidates itself as the leading force in the EU Parliament, stripping the group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) at the moment by 54 seats, in second place after the outcome of the June 6-9 European elections. The new MEPs from the European People’s Group are the Dutch Sander Smit and Jessika van Leeuwen of the Civic-Farmer Movement (Bbb) and Dirk Gotink of New Social Contract (NSC)—two of the three parties that in the Netherlands are going to start the government with the extreme nationalist right – the Danish Henrik Dahl of the Liberal Alliance (LA), the German Niels Geuking of the Family Party of Germany (FDP), the Czech Danuše Nerudová and Jan Farský of the Mayors and Independents (STAN) and the Hungarians Péter Magyar, Dóra Dávid, Zoltán Tarr, András Tivadar Kulja, Eszter Lakos, Gabriella Gerzsenyi and Kinga Kollár of Tisza.

“With today’s decision, these MEPs have joined the EPP political group, but their parties have not joined the EPP party”-the note of the European People’s Party clarifies—since these are two independent decisions with two separate ways of joining. Those who apply to join the parliamentary group must obtain a majority of the group’s existing members in the European Parliament, while membership in the political family is subject to the veto power of the individual member parties of the European party itself. This is a matter of particular concern to the new Hungarian opposition leader Magyar, which risks seeing obstructed the second way because of the presence in the EPP (also in the EU Parliament) of the right-wing conservatives of the Christian Democratic People’s Party (Kdnp), who have not abandoned the alliance with the ruling Fidesz party even after the rabid farewell of Viktor Orbán in 2021 (just before suffering the indignity of the already decided expulsion).

Following the decision on the new entrants, the second session of the constituent meeting scheduled for tomorrow (June 19) is will elect the group’s president and vice-presidents in the morning, while in the afternoon, the nomination of the current president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, as the EPP candidate to succeed herself. The leader of the European People’s Party and outgoing group president, Manfred Weber, has no rivals for the post, while for the vice-presidency, there are 12 candidates for 10 posts, including Italy’s Massimiliano Salini (Forza Italia), who, according to sources within the group, would have “a good chance” of being elected.

The EPP leaders are also not forgetting the ongoing game on nominations to the highest offices of the EU institutions following last night’s (June 17) informal summit of the twenty-seven. As for the two-and-a-half-year relay between the Populars and Social Democrats to the presidency of the EU Parliament, the former are already beginning to ventilate that they have little interest in dividing the office over the next five years of the legislature, while they have proposed applying it to the presidency of the European Council (which should go to Portugal’s former Socialist premier, António Costa). “The liberals and the Greens are the big losers in these elections; that’s why the political direction of the next five years is for a centre-right Europe; all appointments must reflect that,” Weber claimed while speaking to the press before making entry to the group meeting. On the subject of the EU Commission presidency, the People’s Party president himself said he was “sure” that Ursula von der Leyen “will not be challenged” —and thus succeed herself at the helm of the Berlaymont —since “the EPP won the elections and our candidate will become president” of the EU executive.