EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her center-right European People’s Party (EPP) have lost their legitimacy by working so closely with the Left in the past five years. That’s the view of the VOX party’s lead candidate in the pending European parliamentary elections, Spanish national-conservative MEP Jorge Buxadé.
According to the lawmaker—speaking to Spain’s public media RNE on Monday, June 3rd—there could be no cooperation between the EPP and VOX’s European Conservative and Reformist (ECR) group unless the centrist party group is willing to break up its left-leaning coalition with the social democrats (S&D) and the liberal Renew.
“It is an undisputed reality; they voted the same way in the European Parliament 90% of the time,” Buxadé commented, referring to Spain’s Partido Popular (PP) and the ruling Socialist Party (PSOE), who—despite being the biggest enemies back home—sit in closely allied groups in Brussels. “It would be very good if EPP would immediately break this grand coalition” with S&D and Renew, Buxadé added.
However, supporting von der Leyen’s reelection is still out of the question for both VOX and the ECR, Buxadé said, as the Commission chief embodies everything that went wrong in the past five years. “[von der Leyen] is the living image of the policies that have destroyed the countryside,” the MEP said, citing overregulation and excessive climate requirements hurting Europe’s agriculture.
“We cannot support those who have devastated a large part of the production systems in Spain. … This is the [result of the] Green Deal promoted by Ursula von der Leyen and voted for by PP and PSOE,” Buxadé added.
Besides the Green Deal and common agricultural policies, Buxadé also criticized the EPP and von der Leyen for the recently finalized Asylum and Migration Pact, which does next to nothing to prevent or disincentivize illegal border crossing attempts.
“It is necessary to reinforce external borders, combat [human trafficking] mafias, and establish a mechanism for the expulsion of those who reside illegally,” the MEP said, hinting at the proposed ‘Deportation Pact’ that was unveiled on the same day by the Sweden Democrats, another member of the ECR.
No doubt, the comments came in reply to von der Leyen’s newfound strategy of courting certain ECR members as her own coalition is unlikely to carry her reelection vote this time. The Commission chief especially counts on Italian premier Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, ECR’s largest delegation, which is likely to send 22 MEPs to Brussels, three times as many as VOX.
While Meloni might be tempted to support von der Leyen in exchange for a powerful portfolio in the next Commission, she also needs to be careful not to anger her own conservative bloc by teaming up with the enemy.
Meloni was recently also offered a parliamentary group merger by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, the head of the right-wing populist Identity and Democracy (ID) group—a much more fitting alliance based on past voting patterns.
Buxadé, just like Meloni, reiterated Vox’s willingness to cooperate closely with the ID members, but without an official merger. According to the Spanish MEP, the two sovereigntist groups’ alliance makes them “very strong on these common points,” like migration or climate, but leaves “freedom to vote on separate positions.”
