BRUSSELS — With the Socialists and liberals threatening to block European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s agenda, an obvious question looms: Can’t she simply govern with the European Parliament’s right-wing majority?
Last week, the centrist coalition she has been relying on to pass legislation appeared close to breaking point due to frustration over the efforts of von der Leyen’s center-right European People’s Party to water down the EU’s green plans.
That has set the forces further to the right in the Parliament crowing over what they portray as their success in bringing the EPP on board with their agenda, enabling them to push through ideologically divisive measures on topics such climate and migration.
“The most natural outcome would be to have a right-wing majority” when agreeing the new regulation on deportations, said Dutch MEP Marieke Ehlers, a leading member of the Patriots for Europe group working on that law.
“If the EPP were to work with the left on this file, they would end up with a proposal that is weaker than what their own commissioner has proposed, so I don’t really see how they would sell that to their voters,” she added.
But while von der Leyen might find some marriages of convenience on environmental themes and immigration with the far right, she would find it almost impossible to build a workable legislative agenda with such fractured and disparate right-wing parties. Some, for example, are pro-Russian, others anti-Russian.
“They find it very hard to agree. That, in turn, means they are an unreliable partner for the EPP as a permanent coalition,” said Richard Corbett, a former British MEP and adviser to the European Council president.
German sensitivities
Von der Leyen also has particular sensitivities as a German centrist politician, highly conscious of coming from a country shaped by its Nazi past, about coordinating legislation with extremist nationalist parties. If she were to rely on the right, she would often find herself allying with politicians who are pro-Kremlin, anti-Ukraine, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-abortion and Euroskeptic — all anathema to her essential beliefs.
While there is probably more room to cooperate with the European Conservatives and Reformists, dominated by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, it would be far harder to see von der Leyen making regular common cause with the Patriots, whose big names include Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and France’s Marine Le Pen. And any frequent coordination with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the Europe of Sovereign Nations grouping would prove especially tricky — although the EPP has already flirted with that option.
Working with the far right is specially delicate for von der Leyen, with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz battling the AfD back in Berlin. Of the German Christian Democrat trio dominating Brussels, only Manfred Weber, leader of the EPP, has relied on far-right votes in the Parliament.
“Weber is the only one. So von der Leyen is careful, Merz is very careful for national reasons, and Weber, he’s the only one that really doesn’t have any shame of cooperating with the far right,” said Sophia Russack, a researcher at the Centre for European Policy Studies.
Von der Leyen “clearly does not like to cater to the far right, she has demonstrated that in her first term. The majority that she built most of her legislation on was the center left and right, the centrist majority,” she added.
Wreckers not builders
While the EPP can rely on a Parliamentary majority of various hues of right-wingers to help shoot down files they don’t like — such as parts of the Green Deal — the symbiosis will be far more difficult when it comes to assembling more complex legislation like the budget.
An example of the perils of flirting with the far right came with the 2025 EU budget guidelines. The EPP had initially coordinated with its regular allies the Socialists, liberals and Greens, but then shifted to working with the far right including the AfD to introduce harder language on border barriers and detention centers.
After the EPP lurched right, the Socialists, liberals and Greens decided to vote against the text as a whole, alongside the Patriots, who despite their success in getting the migration amendments passed regarded the resolution itself as “unacceptable.”
As Rasmus Andresen, an MEP from the Greens, put it at the time: “If you like relying on the far right, then maybe you will get an amendment passed, but you will not get the budget passed.”
Even on green policy — where the right-wing bloc broadly agrees some trimming is needed — the far right’s demand that laws be scrapped in their entirety would be too much for the EPP. Accepting it would risk internal fractures, given that some of its members support a strong Green Deal.
Relying on a right-wing majority would also raise eyebrows among some of the EPP’s own heavyweights, such as Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who is locked in a bitter political feud with his country’s nationalist conservative opposition, the Law and Justice party. The Poles have already called out EPP leader Weber’s rapprochement with hard-right forces in the past.
At the same time, the EPP’s Hungarian party Tisza is leading the opposition to Orbán.
The Socialists, still the second-largest overall grouping in the Parliament, are being clear that an understanding was struck among the centrists on the Commission’s program, and that von der Leyen will need to stick to it.
“There is a cooperation between different forces that has supported a Commission with a program. I want to remind you, President von der Leyen made a speech promising certain things, and this speech was the result of many negotiations and meetings with the president of the Socialist group,” Laura Ballarín, a Socialist MEP and former chief of staff of the Socialist group, told POLITICO.
“If these promises are not kept, we can obviously reevaluate our role.”
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