The hardening and turn to the right of the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, on immigration matters has opened the first gap with her social democratic, liberal and green partners. The three groups that, together with the European People’s Party, supported her re-election, flatly reject the German’s intention to copy the model of the far-right Giorgia Meloni to take asylum seekers to centers outside the EU, like the Italian prime minister. has agreed with Albania and which the Italian justice system has rejected.
“Any externalization of the asylum policy is simply contrary to international law,” said the spokesperson for the social democratic group (S&D), Iratxe García, who criticized Von der Leyen for wanting to “generalize these measures” after in a letter sent to the leaders of the 27 to propose studying the creation of deportation centers outside the borders of the EU: “Don’t count on us.”
“We are against this type of agreement,” said Renew Europe spokesperson Valérie Hayer along the same lines, pointing out that it entails a high cost and has questioned “the law that is applied.” He has also pointed to “autonomy and sovereignty”: “We do not want to put ourselves in the hands of third countries that do not share our values.” Like García, the liberal has pointed out the need to implement the Migration and Asylum Pact that the EU agreed to less than a year ago and whose application is being developed to reach the summer of 2026.
The Greens, who in this legislature joined the ‘Von der Leyen majority’ by voting in favor of re-election, have also rejected the growth of centers outside the EU due to their “dubious legality” as well as the “ “inhumane treatment” that it entails for migrants, as denounced by co-spokesperson Terry Reintke, who has also pointed out that these formulas are “very expensive.”
The problem that these three groups face this term is that the European People’s Party, which has opened itself to emulating Meloni’s model throughout the EU, despite the fact that leaders such as the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriákos Mitsotákis, or Even Alberto Núñez Feijóo, doubts have been raised, has an alternative majority with the forces of the extreme and far-right in the European Parliament. In fact, it is already using this route, despite the fact that it represents a breaking of the sanitary cordon that had initially been imposed on Patriots for Europe (Vox, the French National Group, Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz…) and Sovereignists for Europe (Alternative for Germany, in addition to other ultra groups).
A threat that is difficult to fulfill
And how far are the groups that supported Von der Leyen willing to go? The socialist spokesperson is the one who has gone the furthest in threatening not to support the new European Commission, which still requires the approval of the European Parliament, due to the German position regarding migration. “It is a decision that we have to address within the group at the appropriate time and once we have seen the result of the hearings [los exámenes de cada comisario en sus correspondientes comisiones parlamentarias]but positions of this type do not help to have a calm and responsible debate on the matter,” was García’s response to the question of whether they would be willing to reject the new European Commission. The threat, however, is difficult to implement because rejecting the future community government would mean rejecting, in practice, its own candidates, including Teresa Ribera.
This is not the first time that the Social Democrats have threatened Von der Leyen. They have also threatened to vote against the appointment of the Italian Rafaelli Fitto as vice president for Cohesion and Reforms, in a decision that will mean for the first time having the extreme right in a vice presidency of the community government. The problem that the socialists run into is that there are crossed vetoes and that, in response to their rejection, the EPP knocks down one of its candidates. Hence the battle over the order of the exams, which the EPP ended up agreeing with all the ultra forces so that the vice presidents would be the last to pass through the European Parliament compared to the criteria of the rest of the allies, who preferred that they be the first to minimize the risks that the rejection of a nominee could be used by the groups to punish the ‘heavyweights’.
Future commissioners must obtain a two-thirds majority of the committees before which they are examined in two first votes and a simple majority (more if it is that it’s not) in a third vote, which requires the participation of all the groups that form part of the majority and even expands it in some cases.
The Left group has been warning socialists and greens for some time that they have given a kind of blank check to Von der Leyen at a time when the EPP has an alternative majority with the far right. “We are not going to participate in a commissioner being elected if the strategy of other groups is to exclude us,” warned the co-spokesperson, Manon Aubry (Rebellious France), anticipating that the socialists will ask for their support in some vote of the College of Commissioners.
Aubry has reached out to these two groups to create an alliance: “Let’s start by talking about defining a common strategy, a joint collaboration.” “The extreme right is about to take power and we have to wake up,” he warned in a press conference in which he proposed “starting with something simple” and that is that “every time they try to exclude the Left, they refuse.” .
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