The right-wing Patriot Alliance has said it is being unfairly denied committee chair positions to which it is entitled based on its European parliamentary representation.
MEPs with the Patriot Alliance, the third-biggest group in the European Parliament, said they were outraged to find themselves under an apparent cordon sanitaire: the refusal of other parties to work with them.
Centrist and left-leaning parties holding a majority in the EP have, they said, worked together to exclude the hard-right group from committee leadership positions.
Instead, such groups have opted to allocate those roles among themselves and hard-left representatives.
Just after the leadership election of EP committees on July 23, MEPs from the Patriot Alliance hastily organised a press conference, lambasting the events of the day.
Kinga Gál, First Vice-President of Patriots for Europe in the parliament, expressed her frustration with what she said was a disregard for democracy and the rule-of-law in the EP.
“This is a disrespect of millions of voters, it is a denial of election results. They are upholding the EU oligarchy in a betrayal of European democracy.”
Gál said that would backfire on the majority and promised to “use all available legal remedies and internal procedures” up to and including the European Court of Justice.
Jean-Paul Garraud, of the French National Rally (RN), likewise denounced events in the European Parliament but added that the same had happened in France where the 11 million voters for his party were pushed aside as well.
Spanish MEP Herman Tertsch said it was “outrageous” and he called it a form of harassment against his group, which is, according to him, part of a growing force in European democracy.
Tertsch took aim at the Socialists and Christian Democrats who prefer working together with the “extreme Left”, and “sympathisers with terrorism” in order to sabotage the Patriots Alliance.
“They will regret being on the wrong side of history,” he warned.
"Despicable".
Vox MEP @hermanntertsch derides EPP for supporting the "extreme left" to maintain cordon sanitaire against the @P4EUROPE group.#soloquedavox #policy #EU #Vox #EuropeanUnion pic.twitter.com/qC4ptlrywi
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) July 23, 2024
On July 23, the European Parliament’s committees convened to elect their respective bureau members.
These bureaux, typically a chair and vice-chairs, are crucial in guiding committee work and setting agendas. This process marks an important step in organising the EP’s legislative and oversight activities for the new term.
To allocate key positions within its structure, the parliament employs the so-called d’Hondt method, a mathematical formula designed for proportional representation systems.
While not formally codified in official regulations, established parliamentary convention dictates the application of this method to distribute the influential roles of committee chairs and vice-chairs among political groups.
Alongside that, the rules also demand an overall “fair representation” of Member States and political views, as well as gender and geographical balance – but, it was claimed, the majority chose to ignore this demand this time.
Patriots for Europe is a right-wing political group in the European Parliament that includes Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party, Czechia’s leading opposition party ANO, Portugal’s Chega, together with the former ID-Group, with, among others, France’s National Rally, Belgium’s Vlaams Belang and the Dutch Freedom Party. They currently hold 84 seats.
