THE LONGEST-SERVING Irish MEP Seán Kelly has said Fine Gael pulls its European parliamentary group, the European People’s Party (EPP), “back into the centre” as he believes the group can be “inclined to go towards the far-right”.
Kelly said that delegates from other countries in the European Parliament have supported the Irish MEPs in their efforts to dissuade others in the EPP from taking hard-line conservative positions on EU issues within the last five years.
The Journal asked some Irish MEPs if their party would be considering a move to a different group, in the event that their groupings could take more extreme positions and be forced into working alongside more right- or left-leaning delegates in the future.
A number of populist, anti-European candidates are expected to top polls in at least nine member states in June’s elections, which has spiked concerns among some MEPs that it could create a less progressive Parliament in the next term.
Political groupings are the European Parliament’s way of amalgamating groups of politicians from different parties into one big EU-wide party whose values and individual stances align.
These groupings are important for the functioning of a ‘working parliament’ as they compel MEPs to come to a consensus with politicians from across the political spectrum in Brussels who they, on a national level, would usually not agree with.
The more seats each group has can lead to them being better placed to take up positions as lead-negotiators for new laws within each Parliamentary committee as well as sway the vote in who will be the President of the European Commission.
Fine Gael, Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil MEPs said they would not be considering a switch.
Kelly’s comments come as the European People’s Party, of which Fine Gael is a founding member, hit headlines after its migration policies around ‘third countries’ were likened to the United Kingdom’s Rwandan plan.
The policy sees people seeking refuge in the EU being sent to a different country – outside of the EU – instead of the country they applied for protection in.
This raised a number of questions around Fine Gael’s membership, as the party’s national policies are usually much less conservative than what is included the EPP’s EU manifesto.
Before stepping down as Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he supported the idea but played down the possibility that it would lead to a similar judicial battle as was seen in the United Kingdom.
Varadkar also told The Journal last month that the possibility that the EPP would have to work more closely with far-right or more conservative groups wasn’t going to make Fine Gael reconsider its position within the group.
The former-Taoiseach added that the group would work with anyone who respects European values.
There have also been a number of instances where there were glaring differences in opinion between Fine Gael’s MEPs and the rest of the EPP group.
The best-known example of this was when the Fine Gael delegation broke rank and voted in favour of the Nature Restoration Law.
But recently, the European Parliament’s report and recommendations into the Mica homes scandal omitted a recommendation for a 100% redress scheme after the EPP voted down the amendment at committee level.
Fine Gael MEP for Midlands-North-West Maria Walsh, who is a member of the EPP, held a different view to her group colleagues and called for the 100% redress clause to be included before and after the publication of the report.
In Brussels last week, Walsh told The Journal: “They have to make their own decision. It’s a democratic process. As a politician, I put the best foot forward in terms of doing that, [but] in the end they got to make their own mind up.”
Fellow-Fine Gael MEP Kelly in Brussels last week remained committed that the party still fits in within the EPP and added that despite the few examples that made headlines, the Fine Gael delegation vote with their group over 80% of the time.
Kelly said: “Here it’s not a government. It’s a vote and everybody has a vote. The group takes the position and if you don’t agree with it, then normally there is no great issue.”
The Ireland South representative did agree that the delegation voting in favour of Nature Restoration law was significant, as he believes Fine Gael MEPs supporting the legislation led to it being adopted by the Parliament.
However, Kelly added: “I think [Fine Gael] have actually pulled the EPP a little more into the centre, and into the way it should be, because I think they’re inclined to go towards the far-right.
“I think we’ve actually helped and others have come on board with us. So I think it will be fine in the next mandate, whatever EPP candidates are elected.”
Asked if he was confident Fine Gael could retain or gain seats in the election, given their position within EPP, Kelly said: “I’m more confident of it now than I was a month or two ago.”
Kelly said that his reason was partly because of the recent change in leadership in Fine Gael, in the form of Simon Harris but also because he believes the public would support the party’s selection of candidates in each constituency for the election.
Fianna Fáil MEPs Barry Andrews and Billy Kelleher previously said they believe that their political group, Renew, will be left out of major decision making positions within the next term as Brussels expects a “shift” to the right.
Speaking at the Parliament last week, Kelleher told The Journal: “There is a there is a significant pressure on the centre across Europe. There’s no point in saying otherwise. There’s a drag to the right, and lesser to the left, that is happening as we speak.”
Kelleher said that Fianna Fáil is a pro-European party and that he is concerned that position will be lost among other European colleagues if far-right MEPs are elected in Ireland during the next election.
He said that it’s an already “significant challenge” for the Fianna Fáil delegates to explain to their parliamentary colleagues that they often do not agree with some of the more radical MEPs from Ireland, given the small size of the Irish group.
Kelleher added that that situation would be more challenging with MEPs in more right-leaning political groups, such as Identity and Democracy who he described as “excessively extreme”.
Andrews expressed concerns around MEPs being “deselected” from the parliamentary groupings, and cited occasions where members were ousted from Renew for being too progressive.
“They have lists systems and you have to satisfy headquarters and the membership department to get on the list. So it is not just even that ID would grow, it’s within these groups, it could become more right wing, actually,” he said.
Despite this, the MEPs said the party would not be reconsidering its position in Renew.
Ian Cooper, a researcher at the Brexit Institute, said while Irish MEPs do hold some influence in Brussels it is a “major block” that the State does not have representatives in the Parliament’s largest groups, such as liberal group Socialists & Democrats (S&D).
There have been suggestions that Sinn Féin, who are currently leading in polls conducted by The Journal/Ireland Thinks, could consider a move to the liberal S&D group.
Cooper said Sinn Féin could end up playing a small role within the Parliament in the next term despite pulling in a large portion of the vote. This is because The Left group in the Parliament is seen as a “minority party”, according to Cooper.
“Sinn Féin is really in a funny position,” Cooper said. “They’re part of a left block which puts them actually quite marginal in the European Parliament, even though they’re quite a large party in Ireland.”
Sinn Féin MEP Chris MacManus told The Journal said his party were not considering a move to another group.
MacManus said he believed that the size of a grouping isn’t “massively important” and that Irish MEPs have had no issues in the past with getting into committees which cover important policy areas for Ireland, such as the Agriculture committee.
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This work is co-funded by Journal Media and a grant programme from the European Parliament. Any opinions or conclusions expressed in this work are the author’s own. The European Parliament has no involvement in nor responsibility for the editorial content published by the project. For more information, see here.
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