Le Pen to Meloni: Let’s team up and form EU Parliament’s No. 2 group

 The far right is projected to perform well in next week’s EU election, but is politically fragmented.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is inviting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to team up. | Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images

MAY 26, 2024 9:30 PM CET

BY HANNAH ROBERTS

On the eve of next week’s EU election, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is inviting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to team up and form a right-wing super-grouping that would be the second-biggest party bloc in the European Parliament.

The far right is projected to perform well in the June 6-9 election but there are still intense doubts about which parties would be able to work together as cross-border political groups because many of the national parties are sharply divided, especially over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Le Pen’s pitch to Meloni is simple, and could well prove significant. Speaking to Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper on Sunday, she said: “This is the moment to unite, it would be truly useful. If we manage, we will become the second group of the European Parliament. I think that we should not let an opportunity like this pass us by.”

Meloni, who is also being courted by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to join forces with center-right European People’s Party, responded she was open to cooperation with any parties on the right.

Le Pen’s National Rally party currently sits with Identity and Democracy (ID) group, while Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party sits with the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR).

Le Pen’s appeal comes just days after the ID group expelled the extreme-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) following a series of scandals that made the party a pariah. The group also includes the anti-immigrant League, a party which is in coalition with Meloni in the Italian government.

The far-right parties are currently divided into four rough groupings and one of the biggest questions surrounding the election is how they might configure in the aftermath. If they all worked together — which still seems unlikely — they could be the No. 2 force in Parliament.

The latest projections suggest 68 seats for ID and 71 for ECR, making 139 lawmakers in the 720-seat chamber. AfD is on course for 17 seats and the unaffiliated Hungarian Fidesz party currently has 12 MEPs. All together, something over 165 seats would seem to be in play for the (currently disunited) far right.

POLITICO’s Poll of Polls puts the EPP group on track to win 174 seats with the Socialists and Democrats heading toward 144 seats.

Poland’s former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki from the conservative PiS party in the ECR has also left the door open to a big tie-up on the right, and there is wide speculation that Hungary’s Viktor Orbán will affiliate his Fidesz party there after the election.

All of these mergers and reconfigurations are complex and vulnerable to post-election deals and disagreements. The Czechs and Romanians in the ECR don’t want to team up with nationalist Hungarians sympathetic to the Kremlin, for example. Major political gymnastics and resets would be required to get the AfD back in the tent.

While losing the AfD has dented ID’s numbers, it has opened doors for Le Pen. The AfD and Le Pen’s National Rally party have long been considered as too extreme for cooperation — outside a so-called cordon sanitaire created by the pro-Europe mainstream.

Cooperation with Meloni could, therefore, be a double win for Le Pen. They could build a hefty voting bloc from which to influence Europe’s agenda and bring National Rally more into the mainstream right in the eyes of the public, something Le Pen craves before France’s 2027 election.

In the interview, Le Pen denied severing ties with the AfD was a cynical move intended to facilitate new alliances in Europe.

On Meloni, she said: “I believe that she and I are in agreement on the essential issues, including taking back control of our countries.”

Later on Sunday, Meloni did not rule out accepting Le Pen’s offer.

In an interview on Rai TV Meloni said that she did not have any red lines when it came to potential alliances other political forces in the new European assembly, having been categorized as “unpresentable” herself, “for a lifetime”.

She said: “My main objective is to build an alternative majority to the one that has governed in recent years. A centre-right majority — in other words — which will send the left into opposition in Europe.”

Meloni said she was not willing to be part of a majority with the left.

“For everything else, we’ll see.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/marine-le-pen-giorgia-meloni-italy-france-eu-election-far-right-block-european-parliament/

Merkel Role in Heir’s Exit Puts Her at Center of German Turmoil

After Chancellor Angela Merkel’s plane touched down in Berlin on Saturday from a long-haul flight, the veteran leader of many a crisis wasted little time taking control of an emergency at home.


Patrick Donahue and Arne Delfs   13 Feb 2020

© Reuters German Chancellor Angela Merkel - will her legacy be soured?

She helped avert the meltdown of the euro, navigated an influx of refugees and handled the tricky personality of Donald Trump. How she deals with the German political vortex left by the sudden resignation of her heir apparent may be the final test of her crisis-management skills.

The legacy of the “Teflon chancellor” is at stake, and the root of the problem runs deep.

Before returning to Germany, Merkel determined she needed to take charge of efforts by her Christian Democratic Union to deal with a firestorm over a state chapter’s dalliance with the far right. She signaled to associates that she was aware of the damage done to her hand-picked successor’s authority by events in Thuringia, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Related: The Merkel model of power

© AP Angela Merkel is widely respected across Europe.

Shortly after landing at around 6 a.m. at the military terminal at Berlin’s Tegel airport, Merkel shifted into action. She axed her top liaison for the eastern German states, who had applauded the contentious election in Thuringia that sparked the turmoil.

Then in the sprawling glass-and-cement compound of the chancellery, she averted the threat to break up her government by the Social Democrats, her junior partner.

After an emergency meeting of the coalition parties starting at 1 p.m., they issued a statement demanding that Thuringia’s rogue state leader step down. Echoing words Merkel uttered during her trip to Africa, they said the appointment of the Free Democrats’ Thomas Kemmerich was enabled by the “unforgivable” cooperation with the right-wing Alternative for Germany.

Almost simultaneously, he tweeted his resignation.

In the span of a few hours, Merkel put on display the qualities that have kept her in charge of Europe’s largest economy for more than 14 years. But in the process, she undercut Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, her former protege.

The CDU leader -- known by her initials AKK -- was reduced to calling the party’s top officials to gauge their support, according to a person close to the events. After a cool reception, she announced her resignation as chairwoman less than 48 hours after Merkel’s damage control.

“It makes logical sense to speculate whether the next CDU hopeful has to insist on a quick Merkel retreat,” said Carsten Nickel, managing director of consultancy Teneo. “AKK’s fate will be a warning sign for whoever succeeds her.”

When the CDU chief informed the party’s inner circle of her sudden resignation -- after little more than a year in charge of the party that has governed Germany for much of its post-war history -- the reaction was a wall of silence that lasted for nearly a minute, according to people familiar with the meeting.

© Reuters Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer indirectly blamed
Angela Merkel for her downfall.

In a press conference later on Monday, AKK indirectly blamed Merkel for her fall, saying the experiment of separating the chancellorship from party leadership, which Merkel proposed, had proved to be a failure.

“The open question around the chancellery candidacy weakens the CDU in a political moment in Germany that requires a strong CDU,” Kramp-Karrenbauer said on Monday.

The messy exit now risks snapping back on Merkel. Without AKK serving as the buffer for domestic feuding, ire over the CDU’s fading support amid Germany’s increasingly fractious political landscape will be directed at Merkel.

A growing chorus of conservative lawmakers are demanding a speedier search for a CDU leader, who would almost certainly be the party’s next chancellor candidate. While it would be difficult to push Merkel out, the pressure will intensify as the party moves ahead with personnel decisions.

Two contenders, including Merkel’s arch-nemesis Friedrich Merz, have already signaled interest in her job.

In the Spotlight

The situation limits Merkel’s room to maneuver and risks souring her legacy as she seeks to hang on until her terms ends in 2021. That could be a blow to European peers who rely on her leadership.

Gallery: Merkel's friends and foes in the EU (DW)

“For Europe, Angela Merkel is very important,” Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said in an interview in Lisbon. “Her experience and her open mind are very important for Europe in this moment when we are discussing a lot about the future of Europe.”

The search for a successor, which Merkel plans to involve herself in, will mark a do-over of the contest that Kramp-Karrenbauer won in December 2018.

At the time, Merkel pushed the former premier of Saarland to defend her centrist approach from right-wing factions in the party. But after a series of gaffes and poor election results as the party lost support to the anti-immigrant AfD and environmentalist Greens, AKK had been on the ropes for months.

Her lack of authority was on full display during an emergency trip to Erfurt, the capital of Thuringia. She wanted state legislators to agree to new elections as way to clear the slate for defying her orders by allying with the AfD.

Emotions were running raw as the meeting stretched into the wee hours of Friday. Despite her efforts, the state lawmakers rebuffed her over fears of putting their jobs on the line for party principle, according to people familiar with the events.

During a late-night press statement, her strain was on full display, with her voice cracking just before rushing off for the long drive back to Berlin, returning empty handed and with the clock ticking on her brief stint at the pinnacle of German politics.

As has been the case since 2005, the spotlight will now be focused squarely back on Merkel.

--With assistance from Joao Lima.

To contact the reporters on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at pdonahue1@bloomberg.net;Arne Delfs in Berlin at adelfs@bloomberg.net

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/merkel-role-in-heirs-exit-puts-her-at-center-of-german-turmoil/ar-BBZXjiG

https://news.yahoo.com/merkel-role-heir-exit-puts-050000971.html

Merkel rules out far-right alliance after 'unforgivable' vote

German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned Thursday against ceding ground to the far right, a day after the "unforgivable" election of a state premier with help from the AfD party shattered a taboo and invited parallels with the 1930s.

07 Feb 2020    AFP

Merkel reiterated that her centre-right CDU would never work with the anti-Islam, anti-immigrant AfD and joined calls for new elections in the small state of Thuringia.

© JENS SCHLUETER Thomas Kemmerich from the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) stunned Germany by winning a run-off vote for the Thuringia premiership, after far-right AfD lawmakers backed him

What happened in Thuringia "is unforgivable and that's why the result must be reversed", Merkel said at a press conference in South Africa.

Jon Stone

✔@joncstone

how the Left party's leader in Thuringia congratulated the liberal who got elected state president with the support for the far-right https://twitter.com/UlrichSchneider/status/1225142079317315584 …

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Thomas Kemmerich from the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) stunned Germany on Wednesday when he became the surprise winner of a run-off vote for the Thuringia premiership, after AfD lawmakers ditched their own candidate to back him.

© Valentina BRESCHI Composition of the state parliament of Thuringia in Germany, in seats by party.

It was the first time in German post-war history that a state premier was helped into office by accepting votes from the far right, crossing a red line in a country haunted by its Nazi past.

Thousands took to the streets in protest in cities across Germany late Wednesday, including in Berlin, Frankfurt and Thuringia's capital Erfurt.

Some carried signs that read "Never again" and "Voters betrayed", while others recalled that it was in Thuringia in 1930 that a Nazi minister was first allowed into government.

© Phill Magakoe Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, called for the election result to be 'reversed'The aftershocks of the crisis were being felt in Berlin too, since Thuringian state lawmakers from Merkel's own CDU lined up with the FDP and far right in voting for Kemmerich over popular incumbent Bodo Ramelow from the far-left Die Linke.

Merkel's centre-left Social Democratic (SPD) coalition partners reacted furiously to the debacle, calling for her conservative party to clearly distance itself from the AfD if the national government is to survive.

"There can be no carrying on as usual without resolving this problem," fumed SPD co-leader Norbert Walter-Borjans.

The SPD and CDU are due to hold crisis talks in Berlin on Saturday.

Related: Things to know about Merkel (Photos)

1/14 SLIDES © Sean Gallup/Getty Images

The Chancellor of Germany since 2005, Angela Merkel is arguably one of the most powerful and influential figure in politics today. Following her announcement that she will not seek re-election to the post in 2021, and will retire from public life, we look at some interesting facts about her life and career.

Speaking in Pretoria, Merkel said the CDU's Thuringia branch would not be allowed to help Kemmerich cobble together a minority government.

She called Wednesday's vote "a bad day for democracy" and said the role played by her local allies "broke with the values and convictions of the CDU".

"We must now do everything we can to make clear that this can in no way be reconciled with what the CDU does and thinks, and that's what we will work on in the coming days," she added.

- 'Shame' -

In states across Germany's former communist east, the AfD is a major political force and mainstream parties are increasingly scrambling to keep it locked out of the corridors of power.

In Thuringia, the AfD is led by Bjoern Hoecke, one of the party's most radical figures who has called for a "180 degree turn" in Germany's atonement for Nazi crimes.

A picture of Hoecke shaking hands with Kemmerich after the election win was splashed across the front pages of several German newspapers.

"The handshake of shame", screamed best-selling daily Bild, slamming Kemmerich for "letting himself be elected by a neo-Nazi".

On social media, the picture was quickly twinned with one of Adolf Hitler shaking hands with German president Paul von Hindenburg in 1933, the year Hitler became chancellor.

Ramelow, Thuringia's ousted premier, highlighted the part played by the state in normalising Hitler's NSDAP (Nazi) party.

He tweeted a 1930 quote from Hitler celebrating the NSDAP's kingmaker role in the state: "Our biggest success is in Thuringia," the Nazi leader said at the time.

Since its creation in 2003, the AfD has gone from strength to strength in Germany, capitalising on anger over Merkel's 2015 decision to allow in over a million asylum seekers.

At the last general election, the party scored almost 13 percent nationwide and won its first seats in the German parliament.

The SPD's Walter-Borjans warned that the world was watching how Germany was dealing with the rise of the far right and the "breach in the dam" in Thuringia.

"What has happened here is a signal that we can't allow to go unanswered," he said.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/merkel-rules-out-far-right-alliance-after-unforgivable-vote/ar-BBZIjFd

Germany’s far-right AfD becomes kingmaker in regional election, prompting shockwaves in Berlin

The AfD is known to be a nationalist, euroskeptic party that rose to prominence in 2013 amid a wave of populist parties in Europe and opposition to euro zone bailouts.

PUBLISHED THU, FEB 6 2020 3:48 AM EST

Holly Ellyatt@HOLLYELLYATT

KEY POINTS

• The AfD is known to be a nationalist, euroskeptic party that rose to prominence in 2013 amid a wave of populist parties in Europe and opposition to euro zone bailouts.
• Political analysts say the reverberations of the Thuringia election will be felt in Merkel’s fragile governing coalition of the CDU and Social Democrats (SPD).



Demonstrators protest in front of the federal office of the FDP against the behavior of the FDP in the election of the parliamentary group and state chairman of the FDP in Thuringia as Minister President of the state of Thuringia.

picture alliance

• The small German state of Thuringia has caused a political uproar in Berlin after the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party helped to elect the state’s new premier.

Thomas Kemmerich from the liberal, pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), is the first mainstream German politician to have been elected with the help of the controversial, anti-immigration AfD party.

The election of Kemmerich was itself a surprise as Bodo Ramelow, of the leftwing Die Linke party, had won Thuringia’s state election in October and was expected to form a minority government in the region on Wednesday.

However, the AfD party joined forces with the Christian Democratic Union (the CDU, the party of Chancellor Angela Merkel) to back and elect Kemmerich. The election breaks a taboo among the country’s mainstream parties, including the CDU and FDP, to ostracize the AfD.

Describing it as a “political earthquake,” ING Germany’s Chief Economist Carsten Brzeski said “the shockwaves of today’s events have already reached Berlin and are unlikely to ebb away quickly ... In our view, today’s events do not represent a shift to the right but illustrate that German politics have become more fluid.”

The AfD is known to be a nationalist, euroskeptic party that rose to prominence in 2013 amid a wave of populist parties in Europe and opposition to euro zone bailouts.

In latter years, however, the party has shifted its campaign focus to an anti-immigration, anti-Islam stance and has grown in popularity, its position chiming with some German voters disenchanted with Merkel’s decision to accept over a million migrants around 2015. Its rising popularity with voters has horrified many in Germany who fear a return to fascism. Center-right parties like the CDU have also lost voters to the AfD.

Shockwaves

Political analysts say the reverberations of the Thuringia election will be felt in Merkel’s fragile governing coalition of the CDU and Social Democrats (SPD).

“Today’s controversial election of a new minister president in the East German state of Thuringia will refuel tensions within the coalition and in Merkel’s party,” Carsten Nickel, deputy director of research at Teneo Intelligence, said in a note Wednesday.

“The move by the Thuringian CDU is a balancing act, but it will be perceived as a provocation in Berlin,” he said.

“In essence, the Thuringian CDU today chose silent cooperation with the AfD over the acceptance of a post-communist, if moderate incumbent. Already, leftist politicians have reacted by drawing parallels to the enabling role the German center-right played during the rise of the fascist dictatorship in the early 1930s,” Nickel added.

Thuringia, with just over 2 million inhabitants, was one of the first federal states where Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party (or Nazi party) gained power after an election in 1929.

‘A bad day for Germany’

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Thuringia’s main cities Wednesday evening to protest the election of Kemmerich, with the help of the AfD, and the hashtag #Dammbruch (“Dam burst”) was trending on Twitter, reflecting shock among the public that mainstream parties had broken the pact.

Thuringia’s new state premier Kemmerich himself told the regional parliament that he was against fascism amid outcry from his own party. He also ruled out forming any governing alliance with the AfD.

Thuringian CDU leader Mike Mohring tried to distance himself from the AfD too, saying his part was not responsible for the voting behavior of other parties, like the AfD. Meanwhile, the co-chairman of leftist Die Linke party, Bernd Riexinger, described the election of Kemmerich as a “taboo breach.”

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the leader of the national CDU party, called for new elections and said what had happened was “a bad day for Thuringia, a bad day for Germany.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/06/shockwaves-in-berlin-as-far-right-afd-lends-support-to-mainstream.html