The centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) has dominated EU politics and held most of the top jobs in the EU institutions for the last two decades. Bringing together pro-European conservatives, Christian Democrats and centre-right economic liberals, it is an incumbent big-tent political family that long sustained its hegemony thanks to its dominance of national politics in Germany, France and Italy.
It seems destined to remain the pivotal force in the European Parliament with about 25 percent of the seats in this year’s elections even though the EPP’s affiliates in France and Italy have been overtaken by hard right national conservative parties. The EPP’s main gains this time are likely to come in Spain.
It is likely to secure a second term for its lead candidate, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The EPP wants defence and security to be a top priority of the next Commission, along with economic competitiveness and fighting climate change, with a dedicated Commissioner for defence for the first time.
In this article, we explore the dynamics of the EPP, the movers and shakers, the geographical distribution of its support, the profile of its electorate and the policies it is pushing. We’ll also look at its drive for the top EU jobs once again, and its coalition options in the next European Parliament.
The power players
Ursula von der Leyen will undoubtedly be the dominant figure in the EPP’s campaign and will have a big say in determining both the message and the policies the EPP will pursue in the next mandate, assuming she is re-appointed as President of the European Commission.
After a controversial appointment by the European Council in 2019, overruling the Spitzenkandidat system in which Manfred Weber was the EPP’s lead candidate, the German Christian Democratic former defence minister is widely judged to have had a successful first term. She led the collective EU response to the Covid-19 pandemic with joint vaccine purchases, launched the Next GenerationEU recovery programme funded by joint borrowing, and spearheaded the EU’s swift and firm response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. More controversially, she drove the enactment of European Green Deal legislation to fight climate change which upset many EPP and conservative voters and is one factor fuelling the hard-right populists’ rise.
Other key players include Roberta Metsola, the outgoing president of the European Parliament, who is vying to keep that position for another 2-½ years in the post-election carve up of top jobs. She has the backing of EPP president Weber, who wields double-hatted power as leader of the EPP parliamentary group for the last five years. However, he may have to yield that position to a Spanish or Polish MEP if those affiliates have strong results in the elections.
Among national leaders, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, with long European experience and the prestige of having turned back the tide of Eurosceptical populism in Poland, is one of the key players, alongside Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, triumphally re-elected last year. The two premiers jointly nominated Von der Leyen for as EPP Spitzenkandidat, and they may form a leadership troika with her as long as Germany’s Christian Democrats are out of power.
Internal dynamics and voter profile
The EPP is a broad church and its internal dynamics depend partly on which national party is in power or in opposition at any moment. However, since Germany has the biggest contingent in the European Parliament, the German Christian Democrats have traditionally held the most sway. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel used the EPP, sometimes nicknamed the “Black Internationale” because of the German party’s colour, as her political engine and patronage network for 16 years until she retired and her CDU lost the 2021 general election. Weber, who hails from the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the CSU, has pulled the EPP towards the right over the last year in response to voter sentiment and the rise of hard right populists and national conservatives.
That has led to some tension between the EPP and Von der Leyen, who promoted green policies in a coalition with Socialists and Liberals in the Commission. For example, Weber recently led an unsuccessful revolt against the Nature Restoration Act along with the national conservative European Conservatives and Reformers (ECR) and the hard right Identity and Democracy (ID) groups in parliament. The vote split the EPP with some of its deputies voting to support the law.
Many EPP politicians feel they have been forced to swallow an uncomfortable amount of green legislation making life harder for businesses and farmers in the outgoing legislature. They hope to be able to restore what they see as the balance with economic competitiveness and agricultural self-sufficiency in the next mandate.
The EPP’s voter base is mostly middle class, more rural than big-city and more concentrated among elderly voters than the young. It has a high proportion of homeowners, motorists, business owners and farmers.
Key contributors to the seat count
Opinion polls project the EPP on course to win between 170 and 180 seats in the 520-member parliament, roughly one-quarter of the total. Germany’s CDU/CSU are likely to make small gains with about 32 percent compared to 28.9 percent last time, remaining the largest national delegation in parliament.
The main seat gains for the EPP are likely to come in Spain, where the opposition Popular Party has won back centrist liberal voters who had switched to the now defunct Ciudadanos (Citizens) party, and to a lesser extent in Poland and the Netherlands, with the main losses in France and Italy.
With France’s Les Republicains facing another likely heavy defeat to both the hard right National Rally and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Renaissance party, its more Eurosceptical views are unlikely to carry much influence.
New faces will include the lead candidate of the Dutch New Social Contract party, Dirk Gotink, who until recently was Weber’s spokesman at the EPP and a consummate Brussels insider. Dolors Monserrat Monserrat, lead candidate of Spain’s Popular Party and a veteran MEP, could be a contender to lead the EPP caucus in the new legislature.
Election forecast
The EPP looks set to remain the largest parliamentary group with about 25 percent of 720 seats. Recent polls have put them in a range from 171 seats at the lowest to 183 at the highest, close to the 182 seats they held in the outgoing parliament.
However, the forecast gains of the conservative nationalist ECR and the hard right Eurosceptical ID groups mean that the overall centre of gravity in the new legislature will shift to the right.
This gives the EPP more options to form circumstantial alliances on legislation and even to secure top jobs. For example, while Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party is likely to stay in the ECR, Meloni has made clear her wish to see Von der Leyen re-appointed as Commission president. That should insure the EPP candidate against potential defections on the left and perhaps by the French Republicans.
The EPP’s post-election wish list
The EPP will be looking to assert its dominance on the policy agenda after the elections in coalition negotiations with the centre-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and the liberal centrist Renew (RE) groups, both of which are likely to lose seats in the new assembly, and possibly also with the Greens, who were not part of the previous coalition and are also project to suffer losses.
The EPP is very unlikely to enter into a formal coalition with the ECR or ID, since its publicly enunciated criteria for cooperation are that it will work with parties that are pro-European, pro-NATO, pro-rule of law and pro-Ukraine.
EPP insiders say the party will seek to push an economic competitiveness agenda with more business-friendly legislation and a more gradual implementation of green transition targets for industry and agriculture. It will also press for a full-time Commissioner for defence to boost the EU’s defence industry and work with NATO.
Apart from pushing for the re-election of Von der Leyen and Metsola, the EPP will also seek key economic portfolios in the Commission including potential economic and financial affairs and the internal market, as well as defence.
Final thoughts
The EPP is well positioned to continue its extraordinary run of dominance in European politics despite the rise of far-right populists across the continent. It is running an incumbent campaign, stressing continuity, reassurance and the attractive personalities of Von der Leyen and Metsola.
While it is not expected to increase its overall seat numbers, it will be pivotal to the formation of any coalition in the new legislature, and it will be much harder than in the outgoing parliament to pass legislation without the assent of the EPP.
As in Lampedusa’s The Leopard, “everything must change for everything to remain the same.”
