The national conservative Patriots for Europe (PfE) group, the third largest party family in Brussels with 84 MEPs, has officially launched a lawsuit against the European Parliament at the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU). PfE aims to overturn the mainstream parties’ cordon sanitaire, which strips the group of all its earmarked leading positions in the Parliament’s governing bodies—even at the expense of violating the institutions’ own internal rules.
The right-wing group is home to parties such as the French National Rally, the Hungarian Fidesz, the Italian Lega, the Austrian FPÖ, the Czech ANO, and the Portuguese Chega. Many of these won the European elections in their respective countries and remain the most popular parties to this day (the FPÖ won the general elections in Austria just two days ago). Yet, the mainstream still believes it’s justified to exclude the PfE from power on account of it being “far-right.”
In a press statement, published on Tuesday, October 1st, the group declared:
The Patriots are the third biggest group in the European Parliament, but contrary to much smaller groups have no vice-presidents nor Questors of the Parliament, and no chairs or vice-chairs of committees.
Despite spectacular election results back in June, the group was denied even a single seat in the European Parliament’s Bureau (made up of fourteen vice-presidents and five Questors) that is supposed to mirror the balance of power in the House. Smaller parties, such as the Renew, European Conservatives and Reformists Party, the Greens, and even the far-left The Left were awarded spots, and the Bureau became even more leftist, despite the Parliament shifting to the Right after the election.
Then, the Patriots were also excluded from all the committee bureaus despite initially being allocated ten seats based on their size (two chairs and eight vice-chairs). To do so, the mainstream parties even chose to ignore Parliament’s own internal rules which state that the composition of the committees “shall, as far as possible, reflect the composition of the Parliament” and that the groups “should strive for a fair gender representation.”
Throughout this process, establishment parties acted as if violating every convention laid down in the treaties was perfectly legitimate if it was done against conservatives, and it was somehow ‘saving’—not destroying—democracy.
The lawsuit specifically targets the violation of the treaties by asking the court to annul the decisions that stripped the PfE of its committee chairs and vice-chairs. The Patriots’ press statement systematically points out the treaty articles and rules of procedure violated by the cordon sanitaire, as well as its ‘outrageous’ disregard for basic democratic principles and tens of millions of voters.
The statement said:
The discriminatory nature of that decision violates the principle that all members of the Parliament should be able to fully exercise the mandate they received from voters.
The Patriots for Europe Group wants that the results of democratically held elections in the Member States be reflected in all governing bodies of the European Parliament without any discrimination. No more, no less.
Even though the case should be quite straightforward, do not expect a quick resolution coming from the Strasbourg court. For one, it might take years until any ruling is issued. Second, the cordon sanitaire is legitimized by the largest group the European People’s Party and, by proxy, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen herself, and the Court is unlikely to rule against her and the Commission’s interests.
