However, Italy’s Nicola Procaccini, chair of the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (which ideologically sits between the EPP and the Patriots), told POLITICO that the right can easily team up on deregulation, migration, farming, and family issues. | Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images
“In these issues for sure we are closer” on the right side of the Parliament, Procaccini said. He believes the cordon sanitaire, which kept the far right from power, is not dead, but that the first steps in tearing it down have been taken, and parts of the EPP are ready to openly work with the right-wing side of the hemicycle.
Liberal and Socialist lawmakers point out the Patriots often coordinate closely with the ECR, which then presents their position to the EPP. According to a parliamentary official, granted anonymity to speak freely, the ECR acts as a “Trojan horse” for the Patriots to circumvent the cordon sanitaire.
Asked about future deals with the far right, EPP spokesperson Pedro López de Pablo said: “We are fully committed to working with all our platform partners [Socialists and Democrats, the liberals of Renew] and they know our guiding principle is content, content, content.”
Vistisen also acknowledged that, while lawmakers from the Patriots are ready to sit at the table and negotiate on all things related to deregulation and migration, the EPP continues to try to find compromises with the center.
“It’s also a question of how many times the EPP wants to look ridiculous in this attempt to pretend that the central majority is the one that can be used to deregulate,” said Vistisen.
He added that the EPP, as the Parliament’s biggest force, has the leverage to do whatever it wants and that “the only real negotiating strength that the Socialists have left” is calling a motion of no confidence in Ursula von der Leyen. The Commission president has faced — and comfortably survived — three such motions this year, brought by the far right and the far left.