Centre-left’s lead candidate in EU polls rules out working with extremists

The centre left’s lead candidate in upcoming EU elections has ruled out forming a majority with the far left or far right.

Nicolas Schmit, the European employment commissioner, told the Financial Times that The Left was too unreliable for his centre-left Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group to join an alliance. He repeated his group’s warnings against Ursula von der Leyen striking a deal with the hard right in order to secure a second term as European Commission president.

The S&D is expected to come second in elections for the European parliament on Sunday, and its votes will be crucial for von der Leyen, who needs a majority in the 720-strong assembly, to start another five-year term.

“No alliance, no arrangement, no deal with the extreme right,” said Schmit, echoing a declaration signed by the Socialists, the liberal Renew group and the Greens.

Von der Leyen is seeking the backing of a majority of MEPs to win a second term. She has praised Italian premier Giorgia Meloni, who leads the Brothers of Italy party, which has its roots in neo-fascism, and who heads the nationalist European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group. However, the commission president has strongly criticised the far-right Identity and Democracy party. 

But Schmit, a Social Democrat from Luxembourg, said her distinction between a “majority decent ECR” and the “horrible pariah of ID” was “fake”.

Meloni and her ECR allies, including the Swedish Democrats and Vox in Spain, wanted to “destroy the Europe we know”, he said, adding that they opposed women’s and minority rights and took a hard line on migrants.

“It’s not because I do not like Meloni. I am against what she represents and puts into practice in Italy . . . things which the Socialists absolutely reject,” he said. “The extreme right is not just ID, it’s also ECR.”

Olaf Scholz, Germany’s Social Democratic chancellor who is part of the Socialist group, has also warned von der Leyen not to make formal agreements with the far right to win a parliamentary majority.

Polls suggest that the Socialists will be the second-largest group in the parliament following elections that take place from 6-9 June, with 140 seats in the 720 seat chamber.

A coalition with The Left, which is expected to win about 50, the Greens with about the same, and Renew, which is predicted to take 85, would fall short of the 361 majority needed to elect a commission president. 

Schmit, however, rejected an alliance that included the far left. “If The Left votes for our proposals, that would be welcome,” he said. “But I think it isn’t reliable enough to be part of an agreement.”

But von der Leyen may also be unable to rely on the traditional governing coalition of Socialists, Renew and the EPP — which is forecast to take 180 seats — to back her candidacy. Several national parties in those groups have said they will reject von der Leyen, prompting her to seek ECR votes.  

Schmit said his group would vote against her if she offered concessions to the ECR, such as tougher policies on migration or slowing action against climate change. 

“You cannot buy something you haven’t seen. There will be clear conditions she has to engage on and commit to,” he said.

These would include sticking with the Green Deal environmental package of laws introduced over the past five years, but providing money to help businesses and consumers pay for the green transition.

Schmit also favours a further overhaul of the EU energy market, arguing that a reform pushed through in the wake of 2022’s gas price crisis, when Russia cut pipeline flows to Europe, still left electricity prices dependent on the cost of gas.

“I always thought competition would lead to lower prices,” he said. “We have to work on the common energy policy to bring energy prices down.”

He is also pushing for a reform of EU competition rules, saying mergers should be assessed in a global rather than just an EU market context.

“There’s global competition,” Schmit said. “If the Chinese have one or two [companies] but they are [many] times bigger than all the European ones, and we [bar mergers] . . . at the end there could be only Chinese left. Then where’s the competition?”