Centrist split
The fight inside the Commission is likely to carry over into the European Parliament, potentially igniting one of Europe’s most sensitive political issues: the taboo on using far-right votes to pass legislation.
Last year, von der Leyen relied on votes from parties across the center in the Parliament to win a second term. But on Wednesday, parliamentarians from across that centrist coalition — except her own center-right European Peoples’ Party (EPP) — lined up against the proposals to water down regulations.
“This does nothing to actually improve companies’ competitiveness; the only apparent goal is the blind scrapping of regulations,” said the Greens’ Bas Eickhout.
“These proposals are crude and badly thought-out, risking actually creating bureaucracy and uncertainty,” said Socialist MEP Lara Wolters.
Even the centrist group Renew, which has presented itself as a bridge-builder, was giving the corporate reporting revisions short shrift. “These seem to be tailor-made proposals for German companies,” said French MEP Pascal Canfin.
That leaves the Commission with two choices to pass its legislation. Either it slogs through protracted negotiations with the centrist parties, or it uses what French far-right leader Jordan Bardella calls the parliament’s “alternative majority” — the EPP joined with hard-right conservatives, nationalists and neo-fascist parties.