Although the National Rally is a member of the Patriots group in the Parliament, the ECR would still gain an ally if Le Pen wins, helping it push a more Euroskeptic agenda.
For example, National Rally’s proposal to halve its EU budget contribution does not concern Procaccini. On the contrary, he welcomed it, saying his group “doesn’t believe in a super-giant budget.”
Right-wing majority
Since the 2024 European election, the EPP has increasingly relied on votes from groupings to its right in Parliament to pass measures such as laws scrapping EU green rules and toughening migration policy.
EPP chief Weber has repeatedly laid out his party’s three red lines for cooperation, which are being pro-European, supporting the rule of law, and backing Ukraine.
He and his lawmakers say the EPP does not negotiate with far-right groups, but insists that if they can pass their own positions with votes from the far-right, they will do so. In July, the EPP expelled a lawmaker who had organized an event with the far-right Patriots and Europe of Sovereign Nations groups at which they called for the dismantling of the cordon sanitaire.
EPP lawmakers generally view cooperation with the Patriots and National Rally as difficult, if not impossible, given their fundamentally different visions for the EU’s future. In early September, the leader of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats in Parliament, Niclas Herbst, told POLITICO that the EPP should rule out any cooperation with the Patriots and instead build a strong centrist coalition to prevent populist forces from scoring victories in Parliament ahead of the 2029 EU election.
