While the European elections of 2024 are beginning to make themselves felt at the European level, with the liberal EPP questioning the possibility of an alliance with the conservatives of the ECR group, its French component appears far from having decided on the issue, opting to leave such a decision to after the elections.
The European Parliamentary elections, which will be held in May 2024, are already beginning to stir up some political parties.
On the right, some are reportedly considering the possibility of an alliance between the liberal right of the European People’s Party (EPP) and the more conservative European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR).
As reported by EURACTIV in early January, a meeting took place between EPP leader Manfred Weber and Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister and leading figure of the ECR. Despite resistance from Donald Tusk from the Polish right (EPP) and some of the German right-wing members, the idea is gaining ground.
However, the French do not seem particularly concerned by the issue, as no French elected representative is a member of the ECR and no major party claims to be affiliated with it. There is, therefore, no electoral threat in France at this level.
Not only is such an alliance “totally excluded for the moment”, but it has not even been discussed internally by the French, an EPP source told EURACTIV. According to the source, “the meeting between Weber and Meloni was over-interpreted”. Therefore, the possible alliance with ECR is “a non-issue” for the French right in the European Parliament.
In addition, “such an alliance would not bring any benefit,” a senior national official of French centre-right party Les Républicains (LR) told EURACTIV, adding that it is “the national dimension [of the election] that matters” to the party.
The source said that LR firmly rules out any alliance with French President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance (Renew) and Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (ID).
Therefore, the only possible alternative alliance remains with the ECR group, which is missing from the French political landscape “unless [former far-right presidential candidate for 2022] Éric Zemmour should decide to put forward a list”.
However, ECR’s calls to the EPP are becoming increasingly apparent. Fratelli d’Italia (ECR) MEP Vincenzo Sofo said that “the conservative electorate is growing all over Europe and is asking the relevant parties to build an alternative majority to the one that has been existing until now in Brussels” in an interview with EURACTIV Italy.
In the 2024 election, Sofo calls on EPP members to think and “decide whether they want to get out of a kind of ambiguity”, either by continuing “to follow the socialists and keep following the left as in the past years or to come back to defend the centre-right values they have abandoned”.
The French now face the question of whether to make such an alliance and how to justify it domestically, where some ECR figures – including Meloni herself – are branded as far-right leaders.
“France only has the logic of full opposition “, a source close to several members of the EPP explains, which is very different from what happens in the European Parliament in Brussels or Strasbourg.
“In the European Parliament, in all the groups, everyone discusses”: the fact of having had votes or everyday battles with ECR – or with any other group – does not thus mean in any way that an alliance is likely.
On the other hand, the LR source suggested that the issue could arise “once the election is over”, for example, to form an alternative majority to that with the left, although it is “too early to talk about it”.
Finally, the French branch of the liberal right sometimes seems to take some of its allies – and in particular, the Italians – less seriously. When asked about the already existing alliance between Giorgia Meloni (Fratelli d’Italia-ECR) and Silvio Berlusconi (Forza Italia-EPP), a prominent LR figure told EURACTIV that “no matter what he says, I’m not interested in this old man”, hinting that he was not necessarily a source of inspiration or example to follow for the EPP.
(Davide Basso | EURACTIV.fr)
Source: euractiv.com
