How the European Parliament is contributing to the normalization of the extreme right – DW – 18.08.2024
The European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), the right-wing bloc of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, managed to secure high-ranking positions in over a dozen committees of the European Parliament following this year’s EU elections.
Of the Parliament’s 20 committees and four subcommittees, 13 positions were allocated to the ECR Group, including three chairs and ten vice-chairs.
Seven of these posts on committees dealing with key issues such as foreign policy, security, the environment and public health were given to members of Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy party – in the last legislative period there was only one. Carlo Fidanza of Brothers of Italy told DW that his party was “proud” of this increase.
Reacting to the news on 23 July, Nicola Procaccini, co-president of the ECR group and Brothers of Italy MEP, welcomed his bloc’s growing role in EU parliamentary affairs.
“Despite the attempt by the left to boycott us in all committees, the positive result of today’s votes shows that the majority has shifted and that the Conservatives can be decisive in the next five-year legislative period,” he said in a statement.
Rise of the ECR will “threaten liberal democratic values”
But some observers fear that the appointment of ECR representatives to such powerful committee leadership positions could not only influence the parliamentary agenda, but also lead to a normalisation of the extreme right in the European Parliament, thus gradually undermining democratic values.
“The normalization of the radical right, as reflected in the ECR’s course, and the lack of cordon sanitaire on the part of the established political groups towards this movement threaten liberal democratic values,” said Zsuzsanna Vegh, program manager at the German Marshall Fund, a US public policy think tank, at X. By cordon sanitaire she meant the firewall strategy of the established political parties, which want to keep the extreme right out of power by refusing to cooperate.
“If this trend continues, it could call into question the achievements of European integration,” she added.
Not all parties in the ECR are considered far-right, but the dominance of the Brothers of Italy is a concern for some MEPs and political analysts. Julien Hoez, editor of a political newsletter and an adviser on EU affairs, said the ECR was divided between those who were simply “Eurosceptic right-wingers (and) those who were more toxic far-right actors”. Their growing importance in the EU, particularly of the Brothers of Italy members, “could have a negative impact on women’s rights, press freedom and the competent handling of migration issues”, he added.
“They could try to implement a policy that would prevent asylum seekers and foreign workers from entering Europe,” Hoez said.
Vegh pointed out that committee chairs and vice-chairs play an important role in planning and carrying out the European Parliament’s legislative work. They not only ensure that different draft laws are discussed, but also set the agenda, chair meetings and oversee who handles the most important files on certain draft laws.
“These are important positions when it comes to influencing legislative work,” she told DW. “The normalization (of the extreme right) brings with it better opportunities for representatives of such parties to influence European legislation in a direction that corresponds to their ideological and programmatic preferences.”
How right-wing are the brothers of Italy?
Following the EU elections in June, during which the influence of the far right in the new European Parliament increased, centrist groups joined forces to prevent far-right MEPs from gaining leadership positions on committees.
These right-wing extremist blocs include Patriots for Europe, the third largest parliamentary group with the French Rassemblement National and the Hungarian Fidesz, as well as the Europe of Sovereign Nations group, whose members also include the far-right Alternative for Germany.
The number of seats a parliamentary group receives in a committee is proportional to its weight in Parliament. The parliamentary group decides internally which of its MPs will sit on which committee and proposes names accordingly, but the chair and vice-chairs are elected by the committee members.
Although committee members managed to impose the cordon sanitaire against Patriots for Europe and the Europe of Sovereign Nations, they did not follow suit with ECR and Brothers of Italy. Fidanza pointed out that this was because his party was not far-right, and blamed left-wing political parties for this label.
“This is the usual narrative of the left,” he said, noting that there are now two political groups further to the right than the ECR. “Nobody in Europe with a minimum of common sense can consider our party ‘far right’. The good result in terms of seats in parliament confirms this.”
Despite moderation, Meloni is still considered problematic
Both Meloni and Marine Le Pen of France’s Rassemblement National have softened their parties’ most extreme policies in recent years to increase their acceptance among voters. But according to analyst Hoez, “neither is particularly far from the other, and much of the ‘moderation’ and detoxification is down to communication strategies.”
“Meloni is a little bit closer to the centre than Le Pen, so you could argue that she represents more moderate positions, but they both represent the extreme right,” he added.
“The Brothers of Italy today fall into the category of right-wing populist radicals due to their ideology and thanks to a moderation process initiated by Giorgia Meloni,” said Vegh of the German Marshall Fund. “However, the party’s original roots linked it to the far-right neo-fascist movement.”
The Brothers of Italy have their origins in the Italian Social Movement (MSI), which was founded by officials loyal to the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Meloni was a member of the youth organizations of the MSI and its successor party, the National Alliance, and founded the Brothers of Italy in 2012.
Since becoming Italy’s prime minister in 2022, Meloni has toned down her euroscepticism and sided with Ukraine rather than Russia, a development that was welcomed by EU leaders. In 2018, before she came to power, she celebrated President Vladimir Putin’s re-election victory as the will of the Russian people, but more recently she has been a vocal critic of his invasion of Ukraine.
Through her opposition to Putin, Meloni is now in line with the EU’s important defense policy. But when it comes to European values and the framework for upholding them, such as freedom of the press, she is still seen as problematic.
In its latest rule of law report, the European Commission criticized Meloni’s government for undermining press freedom in Italy since taking office. Journalists at Italy’s public broadcaster Rai went on strike in May, accusing the government of suppressing free expression.
The EU called on Meloni’s government to “take into account European standards for the protection of journalists” and to ensure “that rules or mechanisms are in place to ensure the financing of public service media” and thus guarantee their independence.
Right attacks EU green policy
Katarina Barley, a leading politician in the centre-left Socialists & Democrats party, said in early July that the patriots must be “isolated in the European Parliament” and prevented from “sabotaging constructive politics” in Europe. This view was shared by Terry Reintke, co-chair of the Greens/EFA group, who told German media that the far right could destroy her group’s “green” policies.
“This adventurous right-wing extremist movement must not be allowed to have committee chairs because its only aim is to block Europe, polarise societies, abolish the Green Deal, democracy, the rule of law and freedom of the press,” she said.
But the Green Deal is also likely to be one of the priorities for the ECR and the Fratelli d’Italia over the next five years.
“We want to renegotiate the key laws of the Green Deal, starting with the ban on conventional fuels and diesel engines by 2035,” said Fidanza. Since the second vice-chair of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety is Pietro Fiocchi, a Fratelli d’Italia MEP, it is expected that the group will try to water down the EU’s recent environmental legislation.
A recent report by the German Marshall Fund states that while the ideological reflexes of non-right-wing extremist political groups in EU politics persist, “a creeping process of normalisation of parts of the extreme right is underway”.
Edited by: Kate Hairsine, Martin Kuebler
