Far-right ‘Venezuela majority’ signals new power balance in European Parliament

BRUSSELS — It’s being called the “Venezuela majority.”

A loose alignment of political factions on the right to far right of the spectrum is controversially winning votes in the European Parliament, just four months after a European election that was widely interpreted as a victory for the center. 

At issue is the dalliance of the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), the largest group in the legislature, with an alternative coalition to its right. The flirtation has the EPP’s traditional allies fuming, especially as marathon parliamentary hearings approach on a roster of new commissioners, many of whom hail from the center right.

“The game [EPP leader Manfred] Weber is playing is dangerous and damaging for the sustainability of the EU project,” said Giacomo Filibeck, secretary-general of the Party of European Socialists. 

“What the prime ministers [belonging to] the three [centrist] families agreed on in June was a pro-Europe majority to support the next mandate of the EU institutions, but a pro-Europe position means to defend our common values and not to allow radical right-wing positions to take over on policymaking,” Filibeck said. 

The term “Venezuela majority” stems from a controversial vote in the European Parliament last month concerning the outcome of that country’s presidential election.

The EPP’s Ursula von der Leyen received majority backing in the Parliament for another five-year term as Commission president in July thanks to additional support from the Socialists, liberals and — crucially — the Greens, who supported von der Leyen despite her willingness to work with elements of the hard right. 

Three months later, however, the EPP has repeatedly snubbed its mainstream partners, whether on how the European Union should respond to Venezuela’s disputed election, who should get the EU’s human rights prize, or how to conduct parliamentary hearings on the bloc’s next commissioners.

On such issues, the center right is increasingly pushing its agenda with the help of right-wing groups such as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) — or even with far-right support from the Patriots for Europe, led by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

The EPP’s willingness to team up with parts of Meloni’s ECR, having opened the door to vote-by-vote cooperation during the campaign this year, is no surprise. Meloni’s commissioner pick, Raffaele Fitto, is expected to get strong backing from the EPP at his hearing in the Parliament on Nov. 12.

But the EPP’s swing to the right has gone further than merely working with the ECR. 

In a vote last week, many EPP lawmakers, including Weber, supported budget amendments from the far-right Sovereignists, calling on the EU to fund fences to stop migrants entering the EU and to set up deportation camps for asylum-seekers outside Europe. 

The votes, though hardly more extreme than the current mainstream discussion on migration in Brussels, were rare events as the EPP — and other centrist groups — normally impose an unofficial cordon sanitaire on cooperating with most of the far right.

“German and international mainstream media believed that we could not exert any influence in the EU Parliament. Today we have proven them wrong,” wrote Europe of Sovereign Nations leader René Aust, an MEP from the Alternative for Germany party on X.

A spokesperson for EPP leader Weber pushed back on the notion there was a new informal right-wing coalition in the Parliament. 

“The EPP is leading the fight against anti-Europeans, as shown, for example, by [Polish PM] Donald Tusk’s election results or the EPP membership of the [Orbán] opposition. We have clearly defined our red lines,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “There will be no cooperation with radicals who reject or violate any of our three basic principles — pro-Ukraine, pro-Europe, pro-rule of law. This applies to parties on [both] the right and the left. We are following our political and programmatic beliefs.”

Weber, though, is under pressure from both sides of the political spectrum. 

“The EPP needs to make a decision: Do they want to drop the cordon sanitaire, and will they fully cooperate?” asked lawmaker Auke Zijlstra from the Dutch Party for Freedom, part of the far-right Patriots group. 

Dutch MEP and Greens co-chair Bas Eickhout said: “This idea that the EPP is having, we can bend to the left when it’s needed and to the right when it’s needed, will fall [to] pieces when it comes down to legislative work.”

The EPP’s recent alternative to its so-called von der Leyen majority owes its name to a resolution passed by the Parliament in September, when the EPP sided for the first time with the right-wing ECR, the far-right Patriots for Europe and the far-right Sovereignists — mainly comprising Alternative for Germany lawmakers — to pass a nonbinding political declaration recognizing Edmundo González as the legitimate president of Venezuela.

González, the candidate of the Unitary Platform alliance against Nicolás Maduro in July’s presidential elections in that country, has been recognized by the United States and some South American countries as the legitimate president of Venezuela amid alleged irregularities that resulted in a declared Maduro victory. However, no EU country has yet formally recognized him.

The September Parliament resolution on González echoed a wider move to the right — and far right — across Europe. France, the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic are all EU countries where the far right is in government or is leading in the polls. Toughening up on migration, defense and competitiveness — all home territory for the center right — are themes now dominating political debate in Brussels.