The power blocs in this week’s EU elections

Many observers anxiously await European parliamentary elections held from June 6 - 9, as pollsters predict significant gains for the continent’s far-right parties.

Since the formation of the European Union (EU), the union’s parliament has played a critical role in shaping the continent’s policies on issues ranging from political enlargement to economic integration, with different blocs from centre-right to centre-left dominating the regional assembly.

But most recently, with the rise of the far-right parties across Europe, a new possibility is emerging with right-wing groups like Identity and Democracy (ID) and European Conservatives and Democrats (ECR) aligning with the centre-right. This shift could lead to a major change in the EU’s political agenda.

TRT World takes a closer look at the most powerful blocs in the European Parliament:

European People’s Party (EPP)

The EPP has been around since the mid-1970s, making it one of the oldest and most established blocs in Europe. Currently under the helm of Manfred Weber, a German politician, who is a member of Christian Social Union of Bavaria, the group is made up of parties like the Christian Democrats, liberal conservatives and conservatives making it the largest party in the European Parliament (EP) since 1999.

It now holds 178 seats out of the EP’s 720 seats and has had the biggest representation in the Commission since 2002. As the largest bloc in the Council and as a dominating force in the European parliament, it holds the power to elect the EU Commission President and other members of the Commission nominated by the European Council.

The current European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a member of Germany’s Christian Democrats and a leading voice in the EPP, was nominated by the bloc for a second term in the upcoming election.

Many founding fathers of the EU from Konrad Adenauer, the first Chancellor of former West Germany after WWII and a leading German politician, to Robert Schuman, a former French foreign minister, started their political careers as members of centre-right parties, which were instrumental in the emergence of the EPP in 1976.

A strong advocate of EU enlargement, the EPP’s supporting base ranges from the CDU/CSU of Germany to the Republicans of France, Forza Italia, the People's Party (PP) of Spain and other centre-right parties across the continent.

Socialists & Democrats (S&D)

Another early political bloc in the EP, the Progressive Alliance of S&D, was formed as a leftist group in 1953, a year after the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), which eventually led to the creation of the EU four decades later.

The S&D has centre-left leanings including social-democratic parties of Europe, allied with Socialist International, which advocates democratic international socialism, a political stance similar to what US Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders is subscribed to. The S&D is also backed by Progressive Alliance, a more liberal version of Socialist International.

The S&D had been the EP’s largest group until 1999, when the EPP took the lead. Since then, it comes in at the second place.

Prior to this weekend’s election, in which far-right groups will possibly make big gains, some leading members of the S&D released a declaration condemning the right-wing agenda’s anti-migrant and xenophobic stances.

“When a European citizen is attacked and humiliated because of who he is, it is the whole of Europe and, beyond that, humanity that is attacked and humiliated,” the declaration said.

Renew Europe

One of the newer alliances, formed in 2019 on the premise of centrism, and aligned with French President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance (RE) party. Like Macron’s party, Renew Europe includes members from both the centre-left and centre-right.

​​In January, the bloc elected Valerie Hayer, a leading member of France’s Renaissance party, as its parliamentary group leader without any opposition. The centrist bloc is the third biggest group in the European Parliament.

Renew Europe’s origins go back to the mid-2000s when the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) group was formed in the EP as a centrist group, which was a strong advocate of the EU and its political and economic initiatives on continental integration.

European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR)

The mid-2000s saw a period of friction within the EU between federalists, who defended more integration and enlargement, and some conservatives like David Cameron, the former British prime minister and then-leader of the Conservative Party, who opposed a stronger European unification, ensured by the landmark Lisbon treaty.

While Cameron and his conservative allies were under the EPP leadership at the time, they began finding the centre-right alliance as too federalist in the wake of the Lisbon treaty seeking a new direction.

By 2009, Cameron, who was also elected as the British prime minister that same year, and his conservative allies from other eurosceptic parties across Europe, became instrumental in the formation of the ECR. In the Prague declaration of 2009, the ECR cited many conservative stances including “the sovereign integrity of the nation state, opposition to EU federalism”.

Though Cameron and some other moderate members of the ECR opposed the inclusion of anti-migrant parties inside the bloc, it has eventually become a platform for far-right politicians that hold xenophobic views.

Unlike Cameron, who advocated “to remain in a reformed EU” during the infamous Brexit referendum, the bloc increasingly became a vocal defender of anti-integration views. But like EP’s mainstream parties, the ERC is fiercely anti-Russian.

The ECR is the fifth largest bloc in the EP made up of several parties including: Brothers of Italy, Civic Democratic Party (Czechia), Law and Justice (Poland), Vox (Spain), Sweden Democrats and the Finns Party, which is now part of the Finnish coalition government.

Identity and Democracy (ID)

The ID is the sixth biggest group in the EP and a fast rising far-right platform formed in 2019, succeeding the Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF), a coalition of right-wing parties.

The bloc includes many European far-right parties, which have shown their success in different countries as they steadily form part of coalition governments. Rassemblement National is the heavyweight of the ID and the second biggest party of France, which might claim the country’s next presidency according to different surveys.

Other members include the League, which is part of the Italian government, and the Party for Freedom (PVV), which became the largest party in the Dutch parliament after the November elections, and an influential partner in the current coalition government. The PVV leader Geert Wilders has been known for his anti-Islam views, proposing to ban the Quran, Muslims' holy book.

While Germany’s controversial Alternative for Germany (AfD) played a critical role in the formation of the ID and had been its member until recently, it was expelled from the far-right bloc after Maximillian Krah, a leading member of the party, defended the record of some Nazi SS actions.

Unlike the ECR, the ID has shown some pro-Russian tendencies, but with the explosion of the Ukraine war, many member parties of the far-right group softened their pro-Moscow stances.

The Greens-European Free Alliance (EFA)

This leftist bloc emerged after the 1999 European Parliament elections when the two continental progressive groups, the Greens and the EFA decided to join forces.

The Greens-EFA is the fourth largest bloc in the EP with 35 female and 37 male members, “representing stateless nations, regions and minorities,” according to its website. Terry Reintke, a German politician, and Philippe Lamberts, a Belgian centre-left politician, are co-presidents of the Greens-EFA.

The group is a pro-European bloc with liberal views advocating climate and environmental protection, peace and social justice, fair globalisation, human rights and self-determination.

The Left bloc

The smallest of the blocs, the Left bloc is mainly made up of political parties whose members are advocates of democratic socialism and communism.

As far as 51 members are also non-attached politicians in the EP.