Why Weber’s Power Grab Won’t Solve the EPP’s Legitimacy Crisis

Leaders of the European People’s Party (EPP) arrived at their annual congress on Tuesday, hosted by the Spanish Partido Popular (PP) in Valencia, where memories of the recent deadly floods—and the weight of the political responsibility never taken—hang heavy in the air. But Europe’s most powerful party family has more important things to do than listen to survivors and share their pain; they are in Spain to discuss important steps to secure their future at the top of the Brussels hierarchy and to reelect their controversial leader, Manfred Weber.

With 188 MEPs, the EPP is the largest group in the EU Parliament, describing itself as the moderate voice of reason representing “center-right,” “Christian Democratic” politics—the ‘adults in the room,’ if you will—even if that’s far from being the case. 

Weber, who was reelected as group chairman last summer and now also as party president in Valencia, has been steadily blurring the lines between his double roles for years. For those somewhat versed in the internal workings of Brussels, hearing a few months ago that Weber stands, unchallenged, for a second term might have seemed odd—surprising, even. 

The Bavarian cannot be described as popular within or outside his party, nor does he strike anyone as an impressive personality whose charisma would help him secure a spot among the top of the EU elite. In fact, many in the EPP—from rank-and-file to senior management—often complain about his insufferable and “authoritarian” leadership style, not to mention his insatiable ego and alleged corruption scandals.

“Nobody wanted him in 2022, nobody wants him now,” said one senior EPP official last month, anonymously, of course. “But nobody wants to pick up the phone and deal with the issue. It’s too small an issue. They don’t care,” he explained why no national leader would step in and block Weber’s reelection. “Which tells a lot about the importance of the party,” the official went on. “The importance of the party has diminished.” 

This sentiment is key to understanding Weber’s ongoing power play, which is simultaneously meant to elevate his role in Brussels to be almost on par with von der Leyen’s and make EPP a much more centralized political powerhouse, offering its members throughout Europe a way to address their worsening legitimacy crisis that’s in stark contrast with the self-celebrating lovefest on display in Valencia.

“We are entering … a new historical phase,” Weber declared in his victory speech. An era, defined by the German CDU (EPP’s largest member) taking center stage both in the party and Brussels as a whole via the trio of him, von der Leyen, and Chancellor Merz, representing the de facto leadership of all three EU institutions.

The notion that the CDU is supposed to be the primary leading force in Europe should tell you all about the cognitive dissonance of the elite. Germany’s so-called “center-right” is in perhaps the most acute legitimacy crisis in all of Europe, and is rapidly losing all remaining credibility after endlessly betraying its voters to ally itself with the Left, propelling the populist AfD in the first place in the polls.

Of course, if you look at mainstream reports of the Valencia congress, you see no indication of this looming collapse. But without it, there’s no explanation for why Manfred Weber is being handed the future of EPP on a silver platter.

EPP getting ready for Valencia!

Leadership, unity, vision. pic.twitter.com/Hr6CNquZRF

— EPP (@EPP) April 9, 2025

Ever since his long-held ambition to become EU Commission President was shattered in 2019, Weber set out to gradually turn the EPP into an alternative power center in Brussels by pushing central party lines on members across all three institutions, which many (even among EPP’s leftist coalition partners) regard as undermining the EU itself. 

Now, on the eve of his second term, Weber is ready for the next phase. According to numerous media reports, Valencia will serve as the starting point for a set of new reforms, which insiders describe as an attempt to transform the EPP from a loose alliance into a proper political force “with the mission to guide and streamline the policies of national centre-right parties.” 

The planned reforms include expanding Weber’s already established “presidency coordination” system and having leading MEPs, national ministers, and even EPP commissioners agree on joint party lines before every major meeting or decision. The party will also start handing down a lot more policy priorities to members across the institutions without leaving much room for dissent, making sure that Weber has control at every step of the legislative process.

This new, centralized structure for member parties—which mimics the Weber-like Eurofederalists’ ultimate vision for the EU as well—is meant to turn EPP into a political machine that dominates all three EU institutions “in a more predictable” way and sets the Brussels’ agenda virtually unchallenged, while also solidifying Weber’s self-conferred position above national party leaders such as CDU’s Friedrich Merz or Forza Italia’s Antonio Tajani.

This approach, of course, is not welcomed by everyone. “We’re not a party, we’re a family of parties,” another official complained before the congress. “First and foremost, you’re always a Républicain from France, a HDZ member from Croatia, and a Christian Democrat from Germany.”

Yet, it’s unlikely that anyone will put up any meaningful resistance, because Weber also offers them something that they badly need: legitimacy, derived from the group, to make up for the lack of genuine democratic support.

Indeed, the ‘center-right’ and ‘Christian Democratic’ parties in Europe, with a few notable exceptions, all suffer from the same problem. They are ‘right-wing’ and ‘Christian’ in name only—more preoccupied with upholding the status quo by allying themselves with the Left than listening to their voters—while the ‘democratic’ part is also questionable given their insistence on the cordon sanitaire. 

The results of this are clear across the bloc, even if they would never openly acknowledge it. All around Europe, voters are severely punishing the center-right for abandoning conservative policies and pursuing coalitions with the Left, not realizing that the post-war era of grand coalitions is over. 

Perhaps Germany and Austria illustrate this process the best. This past Sunday’s state election in Vienna saw the ÖVP pushed to last place with a single-digit vote share, while the Patriots-founder Freedom Party (FPÖ) was again given record-high support, making its exclusion from government, despite being the largest party in the country, all the more illegitimate.

Meanwhile, the CDU was hailed for emerging “victorious” from the February elections, even though it recorded the second-worst electoral result in its history. Then, in less than two months, it managed to destroy all of its remaining lead and fall behind AfD in the polls by backtracking on major electoral promises and forging a coalition with the socialist SPD. 

Just days ago, CDU leader Friedrich Merz was complaining that public trust in German democracy had reached its lowest point in the country’s post-war history, blaming everything but his own betrayal of voter expectations. It’s telling that if the election were today, the coalition would not have enough seats to form a government, which already puts its rule of the next four years on shaky ground. 

Enter Weber and his grand vision of a centralized EPP to take matters in Europe into its hands, even more so than it already has. To many national parties who exclude national conservatives with stronger democratic mandates, being part of this transnational ‘majority’ is the only way left to legitimize their grip on power—even if at the cost of handing a good chunk of it over to Weber.

But those who walk into this trap, even unwittingly, should realize their fundamental miscalculation. EPP has no democratic legitimacy on its own, just like the European Parliament doesn’t have one either, simply because there is no such thing as a European demos. There are only nation-states with well-defined borders and citizenry, with the sovereign power to elect their representatives. These officials then join in alliances in Brussels with the only goal of representing their voters more efficiently. A lack of accountability and the loss of voters’ trust at home undermines that very purpose.

At the end of the day, national parties in any country will remain accountable solely to their own citizens, the only ones with the power to replace them. Failing to realize this fundamental responsibility and hoping to hide that weakness behind the collective power of EPP will only result in more betrayals and speed up the demise of Europe’s ‘center-right.’

Instead of feeding into Weber’s ego trip by giving him everything he wants, leaders of the EPP should use this Congress to take a long, hard look in the mirror. It’s time to decide who they ultimately answer to. If the answer is Brussels, then let’s stop pretending to be conservative or Christian; if the answer is their people, then it’s time to drop the socialists and the firewalls and get to work, for the sake of Europe.