BRUSSELS — The far right last week broke through the firewall in the European Parliament and is now looking to flex its muscles again to secure a wider set of goals.  

Next on the target list: Deporting more migrants, reversing a ban on the combustion engine, new rules on gene-edited crops, and even more red tape reductions for businesses.

After decades of being sidelined by mainstream political parties, the far right scored a major victory last week when the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) ditched its traditional centrist allies and pressed ahead with plans to cut green rules for businesses that received the backing of lawmakers on the right.

Now that the cordon sanitaire against the far right “has fallen,” there will be space for a right-wing majority to pass legislation “when it comes to competitiveness, in some areas of the Green Deal where they want to scale down the targets or the burdens for the businesses,” Anders Vistisen, chief whip for the far-right Patriots group, told POLITICO.  

There’s dispute over how much cooperation actually took place last week, however.

The EPP says it did not — and never will — negotiate directly with far-right groups. Instead, the EPP insists it merely puts forward its position, which may or may not be supported by others.

“It is a lie that we negotiated with them,” EPP spokesperson Daniel Köster said following the green rules vote, after MEPs from the Patriots claimed there were formal compromises and negotiations between both parties.

Yet the Patriots argue that EPP lawmakers, behind the scenes and at committee level, discreetly consult with their right-wing counterparts on areas where they have overlapping priorities.

“They coordinate with us quite often on these files,” Vistisen said, “but it is becoming a little bit ridiculous and silly that they don’t just want to own up to it.”

The extent of cooperation largely depends on which nationality the center-right lawmakers are from, according to the Patriots.

“On a technical level we work constructively with almost all delegations, except with the German EPP,” Roman Haider, top Patriots MEP in the transport committee, told POLITICO, echoing comments from his colleague Paolo Borchia, a member of the industry and energy committee, who said only some national EPP delegations are open to talking.

“Cooperation with the German EPP is practically impossible. They refuse any professional interaction with us,” said Haider.

For many years, the German center-right has opposed co-operation with the far-right because of the country’s Nazi past.

It’s not over for the center

Any further collaboration has clear boundaries — after all, many far-right lawmakers want to tear the EU down. The EPP also still needs the centre to pass a majority of files, such as the long-term EU budget.

However, Italy’s Nicola Procaccini, chair of the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (which ideologically sits between the EPP and the Patriots), told POLITICO that the right can easily team up on deregulation, migration, farming, and family issues.

“In these issues for sure we are closer” on the right side of the Parliament, Procaccini said. He believes the cordon sanitaire, which kept the far right from power, is not dead, but that the first steps in tearing it down have been taken, and parts of the EPP are ready to openly work with the right-wing side of the hemicycle.

Liberal and Socialist lawmakers point out the Patriots often coordinate closely with the ECR, which then presents their position to the EPP. According to a parliamentary official, granted anonymity to speak freely, the ECR acts as a “Trojan horse” for the Patriots to circumvent the cordon sanitaire.

Asked about future deals with the far right, EPP spokesperson Pedro López de Pablo said: “We are fully committed to working with all our platform partners [Socialists and Democrats, the liberals of Renew] and they know our guiding principle is content, content, content.”

Vistisen also acknowledged that, while lawmakers from the Patriots are ready to sit at the table and negotiate on all things related to deregulation and migration, the EPP continues to try to find compromises with the center.

“It’s also a question of how many times the EPP wants to look ridiculous in this attempt to pretend that the central majority is the one that can be used to deregulate,” said Vistisen.

He added that the EPP, as the Parliament’s biggest force, has the leverage to do whatever it wants and that “the only real negotiating strength that the Socialists have left” is calling a motion of no confidence in Ursula von der Leyen. The Commission president has faced — and comfortably survived — three such motions this year, brought by the far right and the far left.

Tougher on migration

One major area where the far-right is hoping to lure the EPP into its arms is migration.

In December, the Parliament is expected to vote on a new bill on “safe” non-EU countries to which member states could deport migrants, even if they are not originally from there, which the Patriots hope will be passed with a right-wing majority. They are already claiming that the price of securing their votes a second time will be higher.

“We know that the EPP are struggling very much to get liberals and social democrats to play ball,” said Vistisen. “If they want to strike a deal with us, it has to be compromise amendments signed by ECR, EPP and Patriots. That is going to be a testing ground for whether the EPP publicly will make policy with us.”

The right-wing majority could find common ground on a new deportations regulation proposed by the Commission in March, a key bill for von der Leyen as she seeks to appease calls from across the bloc for tougher migration policies.

The lead negotiators on the file from ECR, Patriots, and the far-right Europe of Sovereign Nations group want to pull the EPP away from the center and pass a tougher version of the bill.

“In terms of cooperation on the right, what I’ve heard thus far is that both the Patriots and ECR and ESN, but also EPP, are very much on the same line on a great number of issues,” Patriots’ lead negotiator Marieke Ehlers told POLITICO. Ehlers said she is in touch with her EPP counterpart, François-Xavier Bellamy, whose national party, Les Républicains, is advocating tougher migration policies in France.  

Fabrice Leggeri, a Patriots MEP, also said that “there are talks or exchanges of views between Patriots for Europe and the EPP”.

Bellamy did not respond to a request for comment.

Cut, cut, cut

The European Commission may have found a new ally in its simplification agenda, with right-wing and far-right groups in Parliament eager to tear down policy in the name of cutting bureaucracy and giving power back from Brussels to national capitals.

Two of the most explosive files where the right-wing majority could team up are in the automotive sector, as the EPP, pushed by Germany, seeks to slash regulations it says are strangling the car industry.

The Commission is set to put forward in December a revision of what is a de facto ban on the combustion engine by 2035, alongside a measure that could set an electric vehicle target for company cars and leasing companies.

In Parliament, the EPP could kill both files with the help of the far right.

Straight after winning the most seats in the 2024 election, EPP chief Manfred Weber told POLITICO that his group would overturn the 2035 combustion engine ban. The far-right has also made this a major campaign talking point, with the Czech Republic’s Motorist Party basing its entire platform on the issue.

The Greens, the Socialists & Democrats and Renew don’t have a unified position on the ban, making things even easier for the EPP and far right to team up.

“If the German EPP wants to stand by one of its core pre-election promises, namely ending the phase-out of the combustion engine, then they will have no choice but to work with us,” said Patriots MEP Haider.

The digital omnibus, presented by the Commission on Wednesday, is also a potential area where the EPP and Socialists could fail to agree on a way forward, opening the door for a right-wing majority.

The bill is being pitched by the Commission as a way to simplify the EU’s digital laws to make life easier for European companies. But the proposal put forward by the Commission on Wednesday seeks extensive changes to the EU’s data protection regulation (GDPR), many to the benefit of AI developers, which the socialists and liberals have said they will block.

Farming targets

The right-wing dynamic is also playing out in the talks on Europe’s new rules on gene-edited crops, where exhausted EPP negotiators are quietly weighing far-right votes as a fallback option to break a months-long Parliament deadlock.

Italian right-wing lawmakers from the ECR and Patriots could end up delivering the majority needed to push a compromise through — a prospect left-wing MEPs say would result in a deal far too weak to protect the interests of small producers, consumers and the environment.

And the next Common Agricultural Policy, the EU’s vast farm-subsidy program, could shift even more dramatically if pushed through with far-right backing.

Instead of the slow trend toward stricter environmental and climate obligations, the new coalition arithmetic could deliver a CAP with fewer strings attached, looser oversight and even weaker green conditions, which have been long-standing wishes for both the EPP and far-right groups.