BRUSSELS — Poland’s nationalist Law and Justice Party (PiS) is considering quitting its alliance with Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy in the European Parliament and is in talks with populist right parties about forming a new group.
The other parties include Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz, Andrej Babiš’ Action of Dissatisfied Citizens in the Czech Republic, and Janez Janša’s Slovenian Democratic Party.
“It’s quite obvious that we could be united on a geographical platform and not [an] ideological platform. I’m less and less interested in all those ideological elements of the jigsaw,” former Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki told POLITICO in the European Parliament in Brussels on Thursday. Morawiecki added he is in touch with representatives of other delegations.
The move would be a huge blow to Meloni, as her European Conservative and Reformists group has recently grown to become the third largest force in the Parliament.
The ECR is now the third-largest group in the Parliament, moving ahead of the liberals, with PiS (20 MEPs) and Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (24) as its two largest national parties.
Internal negotiations in the ECR between the Polish and Italian delegations have become tense, after ECR cancelled a meeting Wednesday and pushed it to July 3, just one day before an informal deadline for registering the political groups.
“We are in negotiations with ECR and this is the major factor which will decide about our future,” Morawiecki said. Asked whether this was a mere negotiating tactic to raise the price for staying in ECR, Morawiecki said he “wouldn’t say so, no.”
“We are tempted in both directions. I would say [the] likelihood [is] 50/50,” Morawiecki said, adding it is “not guaranteed” PiS will remain in ECR.
Morawiecki suggested that reaching the requisite numbers to form a new group won’t be a problem, and posited that it could have 40 or 50 members. He is also in touch with Lithuanian ECR member Waldemar Tomaszewski about joining the group. “Potentially we might have a big group,” he said.
The new group could be called the CEE, standing for Central Eastern Europe, or even the Three Seas Group, though Morawiecki said the latter was “very tentative.”
Robert Fico’s Smer is not part of the talks, Morawiecki suggested, adding he has not spoken to Fico. Smer is looking to rejoin the Socialists and Democrats grouping, Slovak President Peter Pellegrini said Wednesday.
Babiš, who recently quit Renew, said this week that he is interested in forming a new grouping that would be anti-migration and anti-Green Deal, but did not elaborate on possible members, according to Czech media.
One of Janša’s MEPs described it as “fake news” that his party was considering quitting the center-right European People’s Party. Morawiecki and Janša held talks in Brussels on June 17.
Meloni has criticized the main centrist groups for conducting behind-the-scenes negotiations on the EU’s top jobs without her involvement. With a weakened ECR, her claims may hold less weight.
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