The European Commission president hinted Wednesday she would be open, after the European election in June, to working with some politicians in the European Conservatives and Reformists grouping
“The cut-off line is ‘do you stand for democracy?’, ‘do you defend our values?’, ‘are you very firm in the rule of law?’, ‘are you supporting Ukraine’ and ‘are you fighting against Putin’s attempt to weaken and divide Europe?’And these answers have to be very clear”
With the projected increase in seats from ECR and ID, this shouldn’t be surprising to anyone, however EPP getting closer to ECR isn’t exactly the best of looks.
To me, this sends a clear message that, as Renew falls off due to Macron’s impopularity, the EPP is trying to gain more right wing seats by disregarding integration further down the line and possibly adopting more populistic policies.
Correct me if I’m wrong, I didn’t follow EU politics at the time of the last election, but didn’t she campaign on green-deal policies for her first term? I remember reading about this somewhere. So moving away from that and closer to ECR would be quite the shift.
Conservatives always try to poach the hottest current topic from other blocks. Last election everyone was concerned about climate change and the green parties got quite some share in the polls, so conservatives campaigned on green policies. This year anti-immigration and right wing bullshit is widespread, so they will campaign on these topics. For them it’s more about conserving their political power than actual policies.