The far right has become stronger in the EU, but is excluded from top positions

Given its size, the far-right Patriots for Europe group should be able to appoint many of the top posts in the European Parliament, but members of the centrist party groups have reached an informal agreement to vote for alternative candidates instead.

This was evident in July when the newly elected European Parliament voted on a series of appointments.

Patriots for Europe It is the third largest group in the European Parliament. Only the conservative European People's Party and the Social Democrats and Democrats are larger. The new party group was founded after the EU elections by populist Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and former Czech Republic President Andrej Babiš.

The French National Assembly party is dominated by the 30-member National Assembly. Its leader, Jordan Bardella, is also the leader of the party group. Other parties include the Danish People's Party, the Italian League and the Austrian Freedom Party.

Roberta Metsola, a Maltese Christian Democrat, was elected in mid-July as Speaker of Parliament for a two-and-a-half-year term. She has a total of 14 vice-presidents appointed at the same time: three more from the European People's Party, five from the Socialists and Social Democrats, two from the Liberal Renewal Party, two from the nationalist ECR group, one from the Environmentalist group and one from the Left group.

None of the candidates The candidate from Orbán and Bardella's Patriots party did not get enough support. Nor did the candidate from the other far-right party group in the European Parliament, the Europe of Independent States (ESN).

The same thing happened when the EU Parliament elected the 24 chairpersons and nearly 100 vice-chairpersons. Not a single one went to members of the Patriots or the ESN.

Voting on appointments in the European Parliament is closed.

The centrist groups’ agreement not to release the “extreme right” is interpreted slightly differently in different party groups. Group S and the Greens in the EU Parliament draw the line with the nationalist European Council. The liberal-conservative European People’s Party and the liberal Renewal Party instead draw the line with the nationalists, and in most cases could consider voting for reformist European Council candidates.

From ECR, Party Group The Sweden Democrats, Poland's Law and Justice party and the Brothers of Italy were included, and three members were appointed as committee chairs and ten as deputy committee chairs. One of these is Charlie Weimers (SD), who is vice-chair of the Legal and Home Affairs Committee (Libe), where EU immigration laws are drawn up, among other things.

The European Council for Reform is the fourth largest group in the parliament. But although it is smaller than the Patriots for Europe, it clearly has more influence.

Members appointed as rapporteurs have the greatest political influence in the EU Parliament, i.e. they are responsible when new EU laws are negotiated and enacted in Parliament.

These positions are allocated when bills are presented in negotiations between parliamentary party groups. If the principle of distance between Patriot missiles and the European Security Network continues, its members will be prevented from leading work on important EU laws.

In the spring election campaign was It is a crucial question whether the EU’s far-right parties can succeed in cooperating within a single party group – and thereby gain real influence over EU policy. Another question is whether the traditional right will be open to cooperating with the far right. These fears or hopes have proven to be disgraceful.

Instead of uniting into one large party group, the far right has become more divided than before. During the last term there were two party groups, today there are three.

The ESN group is the smallest in the parliament – ​​with just 25 members – and is dominated by the AfD in Germany. In the past, the Germans have cooperated with the French and Italian parties that now belong to the National Party, but the party was expelled this spring after one of its members downplayed Nazism.

Partisan groups that Parties to the “right of the right” today have 187 of the 720 mandates in the European Parliament, or 26%. In the last period, these party groups had 17%.

The far right has thus received a strong boost. But its influence on EU politics in the parliament appears to be minimal.

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