A European Union in which anti-Europeans set the tone and climate skeptics get the keys to climate policy: it is difficult to conceive. Yet that was the image that arose last week in the European Parliament, during a plenary session in Strasbourg full of drama and unexpected turns. In two important European files – climate and transparency – Eurosceptic politicians managed to steal the show, and middle parties had the check.
In the coming years, there must be a lot of negotiations on which climate goals the EU imposes itself for 2040. The question that was on the table in the European Parliament this week: which group can deliver the rapporteur for this difficult but also prestigious file? Political families can offer this influential position during a kind of ‘auction’. The winner became known on Tuesday: Patriots van Europe, the club of Geert Wilders, Viktor Orbán, Matteo Salvini and Marine Le Pen, among others. A fraction that the Green Deal would rather see today than tomorrow thanks beaches and recent proposals from the European Commission for reducing the emission square. Middle parts did not accuse each other well.
On Thursday, Eurosceptics took off with another important theme: transparency. In the past, it was radical-right parties that often got into trouble due to a defect, for example with regard to part-time financing or the use of EU subsidies. Now they managed to put the spotlight on Ursula von der Leyen, chairman of the European Commission.
‘VDL’ was previously under fire due to its unclear role in the creation of vaccination deals with Pfizer, at the time of the corona epidemic. It is something she never wanted to answer for, but this week she must, under pressure from the legal conservative ECR group (conservatives and reformers), to which the SGP belongs, but also the PIS party, known for the attack on the Polish constitutional state.
What started ‘Pfizer-Gate’ is all about the text message that VDL had with the Pfizer summit. VDL did not want to give access to the messages, the European Court ruled in May that she should have done this, but the committee chairman is still mysterious. On the instructions of the Romanian MEP Gheorghe Piperea, it was proposed to cancel their confidence. The motion did not make it by no means, entirely in accordance with expectations, but the petitioners achieved that for weeks it was about little other than the less beautiful sides of VDL, and in fact of European democracy itself. Mission successful.
After the European elections of June last year, the European Parliament moved to the right. Populists have since started to organize better and more efficiently in fractions, middle parties know how to play against each other and more and more often manage to leave their mark on the political agenda. Von der Leyen himself contributed to this. Her first term as a committee chairman (2019-2024) revolved around the cooperation between the two traditional Molochen in the European Parliament: its own political family, the European People’s Party (EVP), and that of the Social Democrats (S&D), supplemented with support from the Liberals (Renew). Since the 2024 elections, she can go on the left and the right. That means: radical right. And the EVP, with silent approval from Von der Leyen, regularly does that, in particular to push through relaxation of climate policy.
This has, not entirely incomprehensible, put a lot of bad blood with left-wing pro-European parties that VDL helped to a majority last year. “In times of global volatility and unpredictability, the EU needs strength, vision and the ability to act,” VDL wrote on Thursday after the mood. Not a word was lied to that, but it would be good if the EU boss and her party set a good example. Working together with parties who also find climate science or the rule of law also find an opinion or who quietly admire Putin, may be a political advantage in the short term, but is a dead end in the long term.
Last week’s events give constructive parties plenty of food for thought. They – and not Eurosceptics – should be at the forefront when it comes to themes such as transparency or climate. It is understandable that Social Democrats do not want to vote with questionable, radical right -wing initiatives. If the motion had made it on Thursday, this would, as the rules prescribe, initiated the resignation of the entire committee. At the same time, there must be enough room for giving criticism of this committee. Discussions cannot always be smothered in advance with the argument that the world is on fire. In the long term, it will also affect the belief in European democracy.