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The president of the European parliament has defended the assembly’s voting record against accusations it was pandering to the far right, and argued that “political realities are what they are”.
Roberta Metsola’s centre-right European People’s party has come under fire for teaming up with rightwing extremists to water down the bloc’s green agenda and pass other controversial laws.
But Metsola said lawmakers had to accept that “things are different” after hard-right parties secured more than a quarter of the seats at the 2024 election.
The potential for chaos was realised last week when the far right partnered with rebellious Socialists to torpedo an attempt to weaken a law designed to make companies clean up labour and environment abuses in their supply chains. Far-right MEPs said the changes did not go far enough, while some Socialists argued they were too extreme.
EU leaders at a summit on Thursday pressured Metsola over the so-called due diligence law, with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz calling the delay “unacceptable” as it further undermines the bloc’s efforts to become more competitive compared to global rivals such as China and the US.
Metsola countered that governments should talk to their representatives to persuade them to back the changes. “We have a letter that was signed by 22, I think, heads of states to me saying, ‘move, move’. How am I going to translate that into moving?” she told the Financial Times.
“When we are told to put majorities together, they’re perhaps not as easy as they are in national parliaments where governments automatically have a majority and they can push their agenda through,” she said, adding that she was confident a compromise could be found next month.
But the narrow pro-EU coalition that backed Metsola and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen for a second term last year has started to fracture, with the Socialists and liberal Renew group accusing the EPP of betrayal over its side-deals with the far right. The two partners have threatened to block laws if the EPP’s collaboration with extremists continues.
Metsola said she “will always work from the centre outwards” and that 80 per cent of votes are won by the EPP-Socialist-Renew coalition. But she added: “I’m ready to work with everyone.”
She said voters and businesses wanted less red tape and that MEPs should swiftly back the commission’s proposals to simplify and reduce the regulatory burden — an area where the EPP is more aligned with the ultraconservative ECR group led by Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy and with the far-right Patriots for Europe.
“I understand that there are red lines, but if we need to deliver, we need to see who is in that coalition . . . and we’ll have to see what political realities bring us to.”
The Socialists have argued that this simplification agenda is catering to big corporate interests. Renew is split on the matter, while the Greens, who have also backed the pro-European centre on many occasions, attack the effort for undermining the bloc’s ambitious climate goals.
Some centrist lawmakers and officials told the FT that Metsola was accommodating populists as she seeks to extend her term beyond 2027, despite a long-standing arrangement between the EPP and the Socialists — the two largest factions in the 720-strong assembly — to split the five-year term among themselves.
Metsola’s predecessor, Italian Socialist David Sassoli, served for more than two years before dying in office in January 2022, a week before his term was to end.
When asked about carrying on until 2029, Metsola said: “We’re one year into the mandate. I’m working, I need to deliver, my colleagues need to deliver and I think the city requires a functioning parliament rather than talking about deal making behind doors.”
She added that some had “extrapolated” to parliament the rules of the European Council, where EU leaders formally reappoint the president midway through the five-year term. In case of the EU assembly, however, “that’s not written”, she said.
Lawmakers vote directly for their president and “people value their independence and they’ve shown it time and again”, Metsola said, adding that political deals were secondary.
“As a member, I have always voted for whom I thought was the best president.”
