The extreme right of Meloni and Vox overtakes the liberals as the third group in the European Parliament

With just days left for the formal finalisation of the composition of parliamentary groups in the European Parliament, the extreme right has overtaken the liberals as the third force. The Reformists and Conservatives (ECR) group, which includes Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, Vox and the Polish ultranationalist Law and Justice, has become the third largest group in the European Parliament thanks to the ‘transfer market’, although the hurt time is not over yet.

Election night left a provisional result of the European Parliament based on the composition of the previous legislature. That first map maintained the balance of the previous mandate, with the European People’s Party leading, the Social Democrats in second place and the liberals of Renew Europe opposing as the third force, despite the massive drop they suffered in the polls and the disappearance of Emmanuel Macron and Ciudadanos. They were closely followed by the ultra-conservatives of the ECR and then the extreme right of Identity and Democracy (ID), which is made up of Marine Le Pen’s National Group or Matteo Salvini’s League. They expelled Alternative for Germany in the middle of the election campaign to try to give Meloni the opportunity to join the ‘supergroup’ of the extreme right, but it did not happen. The Greens were relegated to fifth place, followed by La Izquierda.

But the emergence of new parties and uncertainty over some unregistered parties has left the distribution in limbo, as groups have until July 4 to add a few more people. And that battle, which practically began the day after the election, is currently being won by the ECR, which has added eleven MEPs, putting itself ahead of the Liberals.

Seat-to-seat battle for bronze

In the latest update of the European Parliament figures, the EPP has risen to 189 seats, followed by the S&D with 136 seats. The ECR is in third place with 83, although Renew follows very closely (81), so the balance of forces could still change. ID, with 58, is in fourth place, although this is also under negotiation, followed by Los Verdes/ALE (51) and La Izquierda (39). The number of MEPs ‘without family’ is 83 (45 who were already in the unicameral legislature in the previous legislature and 38 from formations that are coming to the European Parliament for the first time).

ECR has been the group that has achieved the most incorporations. Vox’s allies in the European Parliament have added to their ranks an MEP from the Danish Democratic Party; another from the Bulgarian ITN; another from the Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union party; and three Frenchmen who left the far-right party Reconquet to form a new party together with Nicolas Bay, who was already a member of the group; and representatives from the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR).

This last incorporation is controversial in Romania because of the growing anti-Ukraine position of that party. The group’s leadership is going to force its constituent parties to sign a declaration in which they commit to supporting Kiev in the face of Russian aggression. But Romania’s territorial conflict with Ukraine is not the only matter that arises from Auer’s joining the ECR, it is also complicated by the inclusion of Viktor Orban’s Fidesz (which has ten seats).

“The Romanian AUR party, known for its extreme anti-Hungarian stance, has joined the ECR group in the European Parliament. Fidesz will never share a faction in the European Parliament with such a party. It is not negotiable,” said Fidesz parliamentary leader Mate Kocsis. He refuses, possiblyidentifying it as the only alternative to Orbán. In any case, sources in the group assure that negotiations with Fidesz and other smaller parties are still ongoing, so they still have room to ‘fish’ for a few more seats.

Renew Europe, for its part, has only announced the addition of one seat: that of Belgian Yvan Veraugstraet from Les Anges. It thus remains in fourth place with 81 seats, although the liberals still have open talks with some parties to try to expand the group. For example, they look to Volt, a pro-European party that has won five MEPs. It now has representation added in Holland, since until now it only had representation in Germany. Ideologically it could fit in with Renew, but their only German representative in the previous legislature was part of the Greens. With those five seats and a few more individual totals, the liberals aspire to retain third place, but things are very close.

Why is the third condition relevant?

Who comes third has important symbolic implications and also some practical implications. The good news on election night for most of the populists, socialists and liberals who served in the previous legislature was that they held out despite the collapse of the subsequent legislature. This allowed leaders such as European Commission President and EPP candidate, Ursula von der Leyen, to emphasise that the centre had won the election against the rise of the extreme right.

Furthermore, the fact that the EPP, S&D and Renew are the three main political families has allowed the leaders to negotiate three ways and to isolate Giorgia Meloni. This logic breaks down if the ECR advances past the group of Emmanuel Macron and Mark Rutte, who represented that family in negotiations with the populists, Donald Tusk (Poland) and Kyriakos Mitsotakis (Greece), and the socialists, Pedro Sánchez and Olaf Scholz (Germany), during the first meeting to address the new distribution of EU power and which ended without any agreement.

In practice, the third power in the European Parliament starts from a better position to obtain relevant positions, such as the chairmanship of committees, and which are distributed according to the D’Hont law. Thus, the EPP will elect first, then it will be the turn of the Socialists and, predictably, again the turn of the Popular Party since they have twice as many representatives as the third party, and so on. Another consequence of coming third is, for example, a little more visibility in the debates.