It is already rare for the European People’s Party (EPP)—Ursula von der Leyen’s nominally center-right group—to agree on anything with the European Parliament’s three conservative parties, and rarer still for it to defy its decades-long allegiance to the Left.
This is why it is unsurprising that the EPP once again betrayed an agreement with the Patriots for Europe (PfE) and the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) at the last minute after being pressured by its usual coalition partners, the socialist S&D, the liberal Renew, and the Greens.
Before a parliamentary vote on Wednesday, April 2nd, the EPP joined the two large conservative blocs to jointly submit two amendments to the Parliament’s guidelines on the 2026 EU budget.
One would have included a clause to set aside a portion of funds for border security, helping EU countries build external barriers and offshore ‘return hubs’ (migrant deportation centers), in line with the wishes expressed by member states at an EU Council summit last year.
The second amendment would have defunded UNRWA, the UN’s refugee agency for Gaza, which has been proven time and time again to be helping Hamas. Yet, the EU keeps financing it with close to €100 million a year, on top of individual contributions from EU member states worth over €600 million—collectively making up about 50% of the organization’s annual budget.
Of course, left-wing parties could not accept either of these. They threatened to vote down the entire budget if these amendments passed, thus causing the EPP to immediately walk back on its position. When the time came to vote, the EPP voted down both amendments, thereby ensuring leftist support for the final budget plan.
The move was likely coordinated by Polish MEP Andrzej Halicki, the EPP rapporteur on the budget resolution, who previously blamed failures to pass legislation on the group cooperating with the Right.
There was a similar situation last October when MEPs voted on the 2025 budget. The Left rejected the common statement after the EPP joined the conservatives to back a similar migration amendment.
Halicki then described the EPP’s decision to back the amendment as a “mistake,” and said the group “should not give space to the enemies of Europe and have a naive view that they act in good faith. … I hope that in the future this will not be the case.”
It seems that this time, Halicki managed to convince his colleagues that their alliance with the Left is more valuable than their promises to their voters.
