The move exposes a gap between political red lines in Brussels and messy national realities, where the far right’s rise is making it harder for mainstream parties to govern without them.
Socialists in Brussels were unaware of the plans in Romania, according to two officials familiar with the matter, granted anonymity to speak frankly. Iratxe García, chair of the Socialists and Democrats (S&D), told POLITICO she expects its Romanian peers to work with pro-European forces in future.
The 2024 EU election produced the most right-wing Parliament in the bloc’s history. The far-right Patriots group — home to France’s Marine Le Pen and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán — became the third-largest force, followed by the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists, which includes France’s Giorgia Meloni, Poland’s Law and Justice, and the AUR.
Across Europe, populist right-wing parties are gaining ground as voters turn to them amid a cost-of-living squeeze and migration pressures. Mainstream conservatives have increasingly worked with them in countries including the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, Croatia and Austria, infuriating center-left parties that accused the EPP of normalizing the far right during the 2024 EU election campaign.
The co-chair of the ECR group in the European Parliament, Patryk Jaki, told POLITICO that it is “obvious” his political forces can no longer be ignored.
But that growing influence is now creating problems for Europe’s Socialists, as some of their own members start making deals to the right. In 2025, Lithuania’s Social Democrats struck a coalition agreement with Dawn of Nemunas, a party reportedly planning to join the Patriots group in Brussels.