BRUSSELS — Welcome to the new European Parliament. 

In the year and a half since the far right surged at the EU election, Brussels’ mainstream forces have been anxiously wondering if the center can hold. On Thursday, they discovered it couldn’t. 

In a landmark vote in the Parliament, the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) — Europe’s largest political family and home to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen — abandoned its traditional centrist allies and pressed ahead with the support of far-right groups to approve cuts to green rules. 

Breaking with decades of political protocol, the move signed the death warrant of the so-called cordon sanitaire, the informal pact between Europe’s centrist forces — the EPP, the Socialists and Democrats, the liberals of Renew, and the Greens — to keep the far right out of decision-making. 

It ushers in a different era for the Parliament, in which political pragmatism triumphs over principle, and the EPP works with whichever side of the aisle is necessary to get the job done.  

For the far right, becoming a bona fide power player is a major success following months of increasing influence in different files. 

“The overall interest has won, but it is also the fruit of our ever-increasing presence … here concretely in the hemicycle,” far-right Patriots chair Jordan Bardella, of France’s National Rally, told POLITICO after the vote. The Patriots’ lead negotiator on the file, Pascale Piera, called it a “historic day” as they “have broken the Ursula von der Leyen majority.”

But for the liberals, center left and Greens, it’s the nail in the coffin of trust between the four centrist groups.  

“It’s a shitty sign for European majorities, it is a shitty sign for Europe, it is shitty for the fight against climate change and child labor protection … to me this is a very, very bad signal for the cooperation for the next four years,” co-chair of the Greens group Terry Reintke told POLITICO after the vote. 

The far right’s breakthrough in the Parliament reflects its sweeping advances in national politics across the continent.  

Far-right political parties now lead national opinion polls in France, the U.K. and even Germany, where for decades mainstream centrists have upheld a firewall intended to keep extremists out of power and avoid a repeat of the country’s 20th century history. 

Professionalization 

Historically, far-right parties in Brussels have been relatively dormant, using the institutions as a means to boost their profile back home more than engaging in the day-to-day thrust of EU policymaking.  

But since the 2024 EU election they have professionalized, and that dynamic is changing. 

“The far right is getting politically smarter and now knows how to play with the rules of procedure to their advantage,” said an EU official working on relations between the Parliament and the Commission, granted anonymity to speak freely like others in this story. 

The Patriots and other groups have also learned the inner machinery of the Parliament to increase their influence. The Patriots’ Piera said her party has shown it’s a “serious” group that can “work” and “knows how to maneuver.” 

They began scoring their first wins just after the EU election by shaping the internal Parliament agenda and procedures with the EPP in closed-door meetings of political group leaders.

A quick way to score victories, they learned, was to vote for the EPP’s position on files. They also started making inroads in plenary by filing amendments similar to those of the EPP, such as on a non-binding budget bill in October 2024, a proposal to water down anti-deforestation measures in November 2024, and a resolution on human rights in Venezuela in September 2024. 

Playing both sides 

In the Parliament’s new reality, legislation can pass either with a right-wing majority (including, now, Euroskeptic far-right lawmakers) or with liberals and the center left.  

The EPP can choose who to team up with — leaning right, for example, on green rules, where the center left won’t concede enough — yet it is expected to still rely on its centrist partners for more ambitious pro-European legislation, such as the long-term EU budget. 

While Thursday’s so-called green omnibus passed with the help of the far right, another vote the same day — on 2040 climate targets (a controversial file to reduce carbon emissions, which some lawmakers feared the EPP and far-right would team up on) — passed with a centrist majority.  

“We need to celebrate what we can celebrate because otherwise we would be depressed,” said a Green MEP as she hugged one of her peers in the hallway to salute the approval of the 2040 climate target. 

Lawmakers and officials told POLITICO that for some EPP MEPs, voting with the far right comes with a hint of payback, as in the last term, left-wing and liberal groups had a majority and could sideline the EPP. 

“It’s revenge, [EPP leader Manfred] Weber can’t stop it,” a Commission official familiar with the Parliament’s dynamics said. 

The EPP said it has always tried to work with pro-European political forces, and in its view, the firewall remains “clear.” 

“Politics is not a game of denominations, tricks and posturing. We have been elected with a program and we need to deliver on what we have promised. This is how we do and understand politics, and this is how we have worked and we will continue to work,” said EPP spokesperson Pedro López de Pablo. 

Despite the breach of trust among coalition partners, EU rules don’t allow for snap elections, meaning all parties are trapped in a marriage of convenience until the next EU-wide ballot in 2029. 

“Our commitment to the pro-European and democratic majority holds,” S&D chair Iratxe García told POLITICO when asked if her party would impose any consequences on the EPP.  “The EPP is the one who should be answering this question as they are the ones [siding] with the far right and stepping out from the platform.” 

Von der Leyen’s problem 

For the Commission president, the tendency of her political group to work more with the right side of the aisle in the Parliament poses complications for her second term. 

In playing hot and cold with its traditional centrist partners, the EPP risks deepening the antagonism between the institutions. Von der Leyen has already had to fend off several challenges to her leadership from the Parliament, including three motions of no confidence and a threat to bring down the EU’s budget.  

Emboldening far-right parties hostile to the green agenda, a core pillar of her legacy, is also a risky game.  

The Patriots’ Bardella said that Thursday’s vote marked “a real defeat for punitive ecology and for an ideology of degrowth that is being imposed in the minds of a number of people here at the European Commission, especially the president of the European Commission.”

Von der Leyen’s left-leaning allies increasingly see her as liable for her party’s behavior in the Parliament and are frustrated at the free rein she is perceived to have afforded them. 

“Any vote where EPP goes with the far right is weakening the position that Ursula von der Leyen has,” said the Greens’ Reintke, adding that since she was elected with a pro-European majority, she shouldn’t abandon them. “In the future, I would like to see much more pressure put on EPP regarding votes like this.” 

Renew’s Valérie Hayer warned von der Leyen that her own party is destabilizing her mandate.  

“Your coalition stands for political stability, and political stability is the primary source of prosperity for all economies around the world. What your group has done today is undermine that stability,” she said. 

Tim Ross contributed to this article.