Nothing ‘to be ashamed of:’ EU’s center-right clashes with Socialists over far-right votes
The center-right European People’s Party won’t rule out voting with the far right to deliver its policy agenda, even as Social Democrats and Liberals increase calls for an ironclad centrist coalition deal, according to Finnish EPP delegation chief Mika Aaltola.
“I’m not saying that there should be anything to be ashamed of in our track record. Actually, I’m saying the opposite. We have gotten our content through, and that’s usually rewarded,” Aaltola said at POLITICO’s Brussels Playbook Live event.
He added he is against putting up a firewall to keep out far-right forces “because it leads into badly behaving kids on the other side of the fence.”
“We should go beyond that. On some issues, I think that they [the far right] are relatively sane. On some other issues, there’s insanity,” he added, while insisting a majority of votes in Parliament will involve the mainstream parties.
Since the 2024 EU election, the EPP has repeatedly passed legislation with support from right-wing and far-right groups, particularly on migration and green policy — topics where the centrist groups have the widest gaps between them — sidelining its traditional centrist and center-left partners.
Liberals and Social Democrats are now pushing for binding, coalition-style commitments among the three centrist forces to prevent the EPP from turning to the far right.
“We need to step up also our game in the center … if we don’t find compromises within files, we have to find it across files,” said René Repasi, head of the German Social Democrats in the Parliament, who was taking part in the panel debate with Aaltola. “We need to not to dilute everything in compromises, but give everybody their wins, and that is the point: You need to have this in an agreement with a binding governance structure that includes many other members than simply the leaders in order to increase ownership.”
However, Aaltola pushed back against the idea, arguing that the Parliament’s political reality is more diverse. “That’s kind of a Soviet election result type of politics, there’s always going to be diversity,” he said. “That’s what democracy is all about, and so we cannot hammer out that coalition agreement that would be millimeter tight, and no voter will buy it from us.”
Renew Europe Vice Chair Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, who was also on the panel, argued that centrist unity is essential to tackle Ukraine, geopolitics, climate change, and the cost-of-living crisis, warning that fights over the far-right firewall are distracting from more pressing concerns for EU citizens.
“I sincerely hope that EPP stops fooling around and comes back to the center where we can concentrate on the real challenges,” he said.
He argued that passing positions with the far right weakens Parliament’s hand in negotiations with EU governments over legislation.
“Now you see positions being adopted in Parliament, with the extreme right as part of it, that we go into a trilogue [three-way EU talks] and we’re completely, completely being outpaced by Council because they don’t take that position seriously anymore,” he said. “I even heard about Commission proposals that they don’t dare to put on the table because they fear what might happen with the anti-European forces in Parliament.”
