Europe – and, with it, half of humanity – is called to the polls in 2024 and some political parties have begun to maneuver to reposition themselves for the next term of the European Parliament. This is the case of the Flemish nationalists of the N-VA (New Alliance-Flamenca), the great allies of Junts and Carles Puigdemont in Europe, where they paradoxically share ranks with Vox as part of the group of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR). The situation has become “uncomfortable” for the N-VA. One of the alternatives that the Flemish independentists are considering would be to join the group of the European People’s Party (EPP), a perspective that arouses so much resistance at the Belgian national level, since among its partners is the classic Flemish right, CD
“We no longer feel at home in the ECR group,” said the Minister President of Flanders, Jan Jambon, in a conversation with journalists in Antwerp today, Tuesday, coinciding with the beginning of the Belgian presidency of the Council of the EU. Jambon has admitted for the first time that there are “conversations underway” with the EPP but he is not deceived about the difficulties that his party faces, no matter how much its president and parliamentary group leader, Manfred Weber, talks about creating a “great tent” from an ideological point of view under which very different political sensitivities can coexist, a strategy that would include opening its doors to Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy.
“I don’t want to advance anything but in Europe the political fractions are not the same as the national ones. We are looking for options,” Jambon admitted for the first time. The arrival of Vox and other ultra parties to ECR in 2019 (in the European Parliament there is still another group to the right of these, Identity and Democracy, which exclusively brings together extremist parties such as Vlaams Belang, the far-right Flemish independence party) hampered the group even further to the right, to clearly Europhobic positions, which has ended up disenchanting the N-VA. “The ECR group was interesting to us when the British Tories were there.” With Brexit, during this legislature the group has become dominated by the Polish ultra-conservative Law and Justice party (PiS).
The N-VA’s claims face two major obstacles, EPP sources point out, the presence of the Flemish Christian Democratic Party in the EPP and the resounding refusal of the Popular Party to accept Junts’ main allies in Europe into its ranks. All the polls indicate an advance by the nationalist far-right forces in the elections to the European Parliament, scheduled for June 9 in Spain. Depending on the alliances they are able to form, these parties could overtake the liberals and become the third European political force in the next legislature. The incentives are therefore great for the EPP in particular to try to attract more parties and try to expand its number of seats.
In 2014, the N-VA responded by slamming the door on the liberals’ invitation to join its ranks (a decision made despite the presence of the Flemish liberal party, OpenVLD, in the group) and opted instead for ECR. At that time, in the liberal group they would have sat next to the representatives of the PDeCat, but at the end of 2018 the post-convergents were expelled from the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) and the liberal group at the request of Ciudadanos following the corruption cases that affected Convergència. In 2020, when Puigdemont, Toni Comín and Clara Ponsatí tried to enter the Greens/European Free Alliance group, where ERC and En Comú Podem are active, but in view of the internal discrepancies that their initiative caused, they withdrew their membership at the last minute. petition and chose not to join any group.
