Von der Leyen prepares cooperation with far right to implement Trump's deregulation demands
The cordón sanitaire in the EU Parliament has been broken. Next week, the centre right may team up with the far right to rip up EU climate laws. Next on the chopping block: EU digital rules.
The centre-right European Peoples Party (EPP) of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is preparing to push through a proposal to tear up some of the EU’s climate laws with the help of the far right. The move comes after centre-left and liberal MEPs defeated the motion in a vote two weeks ago.
That first bill was defeated despite an agreement between the three centrist groups in the governing majority ahead of the vote to support the disarmingly-named “omnibus simplification bill”. Enough MEPs in the S&D (left) and Renew Europe (liberal) groups defected to kill von der Leyen’s proposal. Her EPP group then had two choices: it could offer concessions to keep more elements of the climate laws in order to get the vote of the centrist MEPs, or it could dig in its heels and instead get the measure passed by allying with the far right. On Wednesday, the EPP signalled its choice. They tabled essentially the same bill as before, with the intent of getting it passed with the votes of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group of Giorgia Meloni and Karol Nawrocki, the Patriots for Europe (PfE) group of Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders and Viktor Orban, and the parliamentary group of Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Observers say this omnibus vote, scheduled for next Thursday, will serve as a blueprint for what’s to come. The vote can set a “dangerous precedent” warns professor Andreas Rasche, professor at the Copenhagen Business School. “This would mark a significant shift in political dynamics. Cooperating with such parties contributes to normalising far-right positions and granting them political legitimacy,” says Dr Werner Krause, hair of comparative politics of the University of Potsdam. It could also impact politics in Germany, where EPP member Friedrich Merz has ruled out any cooperation with AfD. If the cordon is broken in Brussels, next up will be Berlin. “For parties like Germany’s CDU, which has only recently reaffirmed its opposition to collaborating with the AfD, this would also risk their credibility at keeping a distance from these forces,” says Krause.
In her ‘surrender deal’ agreed with Trump in July, President von der Leyen already suggested areas of climate law that the EU can tear up in exchange for not being tariffed at 35%. Last month the Commission told EU national governments that it is preparing a “checklist spelling out how Brussels would address President Donald Trump’s demands,” Politico reported. The Trump administration has also said that the EU agreed to adjust its digital laws as part of the trade talks. The Commission denies that its digital laws are up for negotiation. But yesterday the Financial Times reported that von der Leyen is indeed preparing to water down the EU’s recently-passed AI Act in order to give in to the demands of US big tech.
The EPP is playing a dangerous game here by thinking that going forward it can hop between the far right and centrist beds. “No government in the world operates with two alternative parliamentary majorities, switching between