Poland’s PiS to remain in ECR European Parliament group, resisting Orbán overturnes

Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) party has confirmed it will remain in the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) alongside the Brothers of Italy (FdI) party of Giorgia Meloni. In doing so, it has resisted overtures from Hungary’s Viktor Orbán to join the new Patriots for Europe alliance he is creating.

The national-conservative PiS, which ruled Poland from 2015 to the end of last year and is now in opposition, came second in last month’s European elections in Poland. Its 36% of the vote translated into 20 seats in the European Parliament (EP), down from the 27 it won in 2019.

That made it the second-largest party in the ECR, which is one of the umbrella groups that bring together like-minded parties from various countries in the EP. The largest member of the ECR is Meloni’s FdI, which won 24 seats last month.

The Parliament has updated the #EUelections results and shows the ECR group surpassing Renew Europe as the third largest formation.

More info on the ECR’s new members: https://t.co/e3wVtNrJCB pic.twitter.com/HInmTmAqRV

— Jorge Liboreiro (@JorgeLiboreiro) June 19, 2024

Other groups that currently belong to the ECR include Spain’s Vox and the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), which both have six seats.

Across the European Union as a whole, the ECR finished third in last month’s elections, winning 12.2% of the vote, which translated into 84 seats, up 4 percentage points and 22 seats on 2019.

However, since the elections, a new force on the right and far right has emerged, with Orbán’s Fidesz launching the Patriots for Europe initiative alongside ANO – the party of former Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš – and Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ). Portugal’s Chega also later joined

‘Patriots for Europe’: Hungary’s Orban announces new EU Parliament alliance https://t.co/ZzTxHaNP34

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) July 1, 2024

Those four parties together have 26 MEPs. To be recognised in the EP, a group is required to have at least 23 MEPs who must come from at least one quarter of member states (currently meaning seven). Patriots for Europe meets the first threshold but not yet the second.

PiS had been seen as a potential candidate to join the group, given its longstanding close relations with Fidesz. However, those ties have been frayed since 2022 due to the parties’ strongly different positions on Russia and its war in Ukraine.

But in February this year, former PiS Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki declared that his party was “open” to the idea of Fidesz joining the ECR after the elections. There have been reports of tensions between PiS and FdI and AUR over the issue since the elections.

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Last week, Morawiecki told Politico Europe that it was “50/50” as to whether PiS would stay in the ECR or instead seek to form a “geographical platform” with other parties in the region such a Fidesz, ANO and the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS).

Many commentators suspected such talk was merely a negotiating tactic to strengthen PiS’s position in talks with the FdI. And on Wednesday this week, PiS confirmed it was sticking with the ECR during a meeting of the group in Sicily.

“The decision has been made: we are staying in the ECR,” one of its MEPs, Kosma Złotowski, told the Polish Press Agency (PAP). He has taken the position of co-treasurer alongside FdI’s Denis Nesci. Another senior PiS figure, Joachim Brudziński, is becoming co-chair alongside FdI’s Nicola Procaccini.

The ECR Group has now been constituted!

👏 Congratulations to @NProcaccini, who has been re-elected as co-chairman, to @jbrudzinski, elected to share the chairmanship, and to all vice presidents, @Weimers, @Assita_Kanko, @AlexandrVondra, and @hermanntertsch, and co-treasurers,… pic.twitter.com/NXgO3QjUCa

— ECR Group (@ecrgroup) July 3, 2024

Meanwhile, reports suggest that Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) has been in talks to join Patriots for Europe. That could precipitate the collapse of the far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) group – which is currently dominated by RN and Matteo Salvini’s Lega – with its members absorbed into Patriots for Europe.

As a result of such changes, Patriots for Europe could eventually form an official group in the EP with around 95 MEPs, reports Euractiv, making it larger than the ECR.

Meanwhile, Poland’s far-right Confederation (Konfederacja), which surged into third place at last month’s elections and won six seats in the EP for the first time, remains undecided as to which faction it will join.

„Everything indicates the far-right ID group is set to collapse in favour of the newly created ‘Patriots for Europe’, which aims to gather all radical right forces beyond ECR. What does that mean for the far-right camp’s influence in the EP?” by @MaxGriera https://t.co/vVpREPxXTU

— Euractiv Politics (@eaPolitics) July 4, 2024

Main image credit: Kuba Atys / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.