Traditionally, the EPP has formed vote-by-vote majorities with centrist, mainstream political factions such as the Socialists and Democrats and the liberals. During the election campaign, the Socialists threatened not to support EPP candidate Ursula von der Leyen for a second five-year term as European Commission president if there was any “structural cooperation” between the EPP and the ECR.
Still, months before the election, the EPP and its leaders kept the door open to the right, especially parts of the ECR it deemed legitimate and useful partners on topics like supporting Ukraine, which could mean a significant rightward shift for EU policymaking ranging from migration to protection of traditional industries, like farming and steel making.
“We have a responsibility also after this election to make sure that something changed … The majority will include the ECR very often,” Peter Liese, an EPP lawmaker from Germany, told journalists Monday.
The EPP is cashing in on that promise even as its faces off with Socialists in a high-stakes game of “who blinks first” in the Parliament, leaving the Commission in uncertainty at a time of high geopolitical instability and weeks before the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
On Wednesday, senior lawmakers come together behind closed doors to decide the fate of seven European commissioner nominees, hinging on the Socialists’ prized commissioner, Spanish Ecological Transition Minister Teresa Ribera and the darling of the right, Raffaele Fitto, who is backed by the EPP.
Fitto was nominated by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose party is a member of the ECR. The other 19 future European commissioners who have been tentatively approved so far have only been approved with the help of the ECR.