Listen: What happens if the EPP joins forces with the far right?

The Parliament’s biggest political group, the European People’s Party, or EPP, is poised to do something it has long claimed it would never do: vote alongside the far right. How could this move reshape not only the EU’s environmental policy but also the entire political balance in Brussels?

Production: By Europod, in co-production with Sphera Network.

EUobserver is proud to have an editorial partnership with Europod to co-publish the podcast series “Long Story Short” hosted by Evi Kiorri. The podcast is available on all major platforms.

You can find the transcript here if you prefer reading:

All eyes today are on a crucial vote in the European Parliament regarding corporate sustainability and due diligence rules. The Parliament’s biggest political group, the European People’s Party, or EPP, is poised to do something it has long claimed it would never do, vote alongside the far right.

How could this move reshape not only the EU’s environmental policy but also the entire political balance in Brussels?

In this key vote the EPP plans to back a package that rolls back corporate sustainability and due diligence laws. That means fewer companies would have to report on their environmental and human rights impacts.

The EPP’s leader, Manfred Weber, says this is about cutting red tape and protecting European jobs. But in order to pass these changes, his party will need the votes of groups like the European Conservatives and Reformists, Viktor Orbán’s Patriots for Europe and Germany’s AfD.

If this alliance goes ahead, it would be the first time in EU history that a major law passes with a majority made up of both the right and the far right.

Not long ago, this would have been unthinkable. For decades, mainstream parties in Brussels maintained what’s called a cordon sanitaire, which is an agreement not to cooperate with far-right groups that question the EU’s values or legitimacy.

But now, it seems that the firewall is cracking.

Now, the EPP says it’s simply being pragmatic with finding majorities where it can. But if that means normalising cooperation with far-right forces that openly challenge European democracy, then the cost could be much higher than a few pages of “unnecessary red tape.”

This is also a problem for Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, who comes from the EPP herself. She built her pro-European majority on cooperation between the centre-right, the socialists, the liberals, and the Greens.

That coalition is now falling apart and without it, von der Leyen’s entire agenda, from the Green Deal to social rights, could stall.

Terry Reintke, co-president of the Greens, has already called the EPP’s move “a breach of the cordon sanitaire.” Others warn it could paralyse Parliament altogether.

And while the EPP claims the left is being inflexible, sources in Brussels say they’ve refused for weeks to meet with negotiators from the socialists, liberals, and Greens, the very parties they’ve long called “the pro-European bloc.”

And the irony is hard to miss because the party that calls itself the defender of Europe might now depend on those who want to dismantle it.

So what happens next?

Today’s vote will show whether Europe’s conservatives are still willing to draw a line or whether that line has already been erased.

If the EPP joins forces with the far right, it could set a precedent for future votes, on migration, climate, even the EU budget. We could be entering a new era in European politics, where power no longer depends on a centrist pro-EU majority, but on shifting, issue-by-issue alliances that include extremists.

Still, there’s a twist: the vote could go either way. If enough EPP lawmakers secretly rebel and yes, there’s talk of a secret ballot the far-right deal could collapse, forcing Weber back to the table with the centrist parties.