So far, the official line taken by center-right parties has been to keep their distance from the far right in line with Europe’s cordon sanitaire.
But NGOs and left-leaning groups within the European Parliament, such as The Left and the Greens, fear that Germany’s domestic battle could play out at the level of EU institutions by creating a pathway for conservatives and the far right to connect.
The center-right European People’s Party has already kickstarted a campaign — backed by the hard-right European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and the far-right Patriots for Europe — to examine whether European Commission funding for green NGOs was used to lobby in Brussels.
As budget talks loom in the Parliament, the EPP, where the CDU is a key member, could use this common stance on funding to build a new majority with far-right parties, some left-leaning groups have worried.
“We have seen dangerous tendencies with regard to civil society support in other countries, and I cannot believe the CDU wants to find themselves in this camp,” said René Repasi, head of the German socialist delegation in the European Parliament.
“Singling out NGOs, as the European People’s Party and the CDU are doing, is unjustified and deeply worrying,” said Ciarán Cuffe, co-chair of the European Green Party. “We don’t want the EPP to become some kind of Orwellian thought police, telling civil society what to think.”