The EPP's Collusion with the Far Right, Enabled by Centrist Complicity, Is Eroding EU Protective Standards
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/alberto-alemanno. "How the far right is tightening its grip over the EU – from the inside | Alberto Alemanno | The Guardian." August 18, 2026. www.theguardian.com
The Gist
The author argues that Europe's main centrist party (EPP) is secretly teaming up with far-right groups to pass harsh laws, while still getting the moderate parties to vote for it to keep power - getting the best of both worlds. He says the only way to stop this is for the centrist parties (socialists, liberals, greens) to refuse to support the EPP anymore unless it promises to stop cooperating with the far right.
Conclusion
The pro-European centrist parties (socialists, liberals, greens) must withdraw their unconditional support for the European People's Party (EPP) unless it commits to never forming legislative majorities with far-right groups, because the EPP is already governing with the far right while using centrist votes as legitimizing cover.
Premises
- The EPP now operates with two rival majorities: a legacy centrist majority for controlling institutions, and a far-right majority (with ECR, PfE, ESN) for passing legislation.
- Since 2024, the EPP has voted with the far right more than 20 times, including on the harshest migration law in EU history (the 'return regulation').
- The EPP pays no political price for these alliances because centrist parties continue to supply votes for institutional control (commission, parliament presidencies) without attaching conditions.
- This dynamic has enabled a broad rollback of EU protective standards across migration, climate, corporate accountability, and AI under the banner of 'simplification'.
- The EPP exhibits structural hypocrisy: invoking the anti-AfD 'firewall' domestically in Germany while breaching it in Brussels whenever hard-right votes are useful.
- The EPP has also collaborated with the far right on non-legislative matters, such as blocking a criminal referral against the Patriots for Europe and shielding an EPP member from prosecution.
- The upcoming January 2027 parliamentary presidency election, where the PfE has offered support to EPP's Metsola, represents a concrete test of whether centrists will continue enabling this arrangement.
Assumptions
- The European Parliament's institutional legitimacy and the EU's founding anti-majoritarian principles are inherently valuable and worth protecting.
- Centrist parties have sufficient leverage to meaningfully constrain the EPP by withholding votes for institutional positions.
- The EPP's rightward legislative alliances reflect genuine ideological accommodation rather than mere pragmatic vote-counting on discrete issues.
- Withdrawing centrist support would create accountability rather than simply shifting power more directly to the far right.
- The described legislative outcomes (migration law, deregulation) are objectively harmful rollbacks rather than legitimate policy responses to changing circumstances (e.g., migration crises).