The centrist forces that have ruled Brussels for decades may no longer be able to pass legislation and could have to team up with right-wing and far-right parties, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola warned Thursday.
Metsola was speaking at the EU summit a day after members of Parliament rejected a landmark proposal to cut red tape for businesses amid division over how far the EU should go in scaling back its laws. That vote sparked anger in national capitals.
“Yesterday’s decision by the European Parliament is unacceptable,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said upon arrival at the EU leaders’ summit in Brussels, adding the decision was “a fatal mistake and must be corrected.”
However, Metsola said she believes the Parliament will find a way to reach agreement on key issues, even if it involves a break with the traditional ways of working.
“Majorities are always strongest from the center out because we believe that this is the way to move Europe forward,” she said in a press conference after meeting the EU leaders. “But if this is not possible, I know that this House [the Parliament] will deliver regardless. Especially because the prime ministers around the table were unanimous in saying that this needs to happen.”
The Parliament’s major centrist groups — the European People’s Party (of Ursula von der Leyen and Metsola herself), Renew and the Socialists and Democrats — had agreed to back the red tape proposal. But in a secret ballot, a number of Socialist MEPs rebelled and voted against the deal.
MEPs will vote again in November, and the EPP may need to rely on the far right to push through the deregulation package.
When asked how she felt about the right wing being needed to back legislation, Metsola said she would prefer majorities to come from the center but that this won’t always be possible.
“To be very clear, the message to me from the Council is get the numbers where you find them,” Metsola said. “I have an institutional responsibility, I need to keep majorities working and I need to keep groups working in sync together.
“Some positions cannot be bridged but many can,” Metsola concluded, adding that the centrist forces have found agreement on the likes of defense funding and agriculture policy but struggled to do so on migration and green simplification.
“It’s not about majority; if anything, it’s about pragmatism,” she said.
For decades, the main centrist forces have found ways to work together and exclude the far right. However, groups on the right enjoyed great success in the 2024 EU election, and working with those groups is becoming less taboo.
Metsola said she had asked leaders for “their help” to make sure that MEPs “mirror the agenda” of the countries they represent, especially as some of the Socialist MEPs who voted down the agreement are part of governments pushing for the simplification package, such as the Germans, Austrians and Poles.
There will likely be a lot more simplification proposals for the Parliament to vote on.
In a letter dated Oct. 20, obtained by POLITICO, the leaders of Germany, France, Italy and others called for “a constant stream” of simplification proposals from the European Commission.
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