European People's Party: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 15:22, 25 June 2025

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Script error: No such module "Infobox".Template:Template otherScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". The European People's Party (EPP) is a European political party with Christian democratic,^[1] liberal-conservative,^[1] and conservative^[2]^[3] member parties. A transnational organisation, it is composed of other political parties. Founded by primarily Christian-democratic parties in 1976, it has since broadened its membership to include liberal-conservative parties and parties with other centre-right political perspectives.^[3]^[4]^[5]^[6]^[7] On 31 May 2022, the party elected as its President Manfred Weber, who was also EPP's Spitzenkandidat in 2019.

The EPP has been the largest party in the European Parliament since 1999 and in the European Council since 2002. It is also the largest party in the current European Commission. The President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and the President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola are from the EPP. Many of the founding fathers of the European Union were also from parties that later formed the EPP.

The EPP includes major centre-right parties such as the CDU/CSU of Germany, the Nationalist Party of Malta, the People's Party (PP) of Spain, Forza Italia of Italy, ÖVP of Austria, HDZ of Croatia, PNL of Romania, Fine Gael of Ireland, National Coalition Party of Finland, New Democracy of Greece, the Moderates of Sweden, the Civic Platform of Poland, the Social Democratic Party of Portugal, the Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria and the TISZA party of Hungary.

History

File:European People's Party (logo).svg

Logo of European People's Party from 2005 to 2015

File:EPP Congress Rotterdam Weber.jpg

President Manfred Weber, 2022 Rotterdam EPP Congress

File:Tindemans, Bukman, Santer.jpg

From left to right: Tindemans, Bukman and Santer, former presidents of the EPP

File:Flickr - europeanpeoplesparty - EPP Congress Bonn (836).jpg

Bonn EPP Congress in 2009

According to its website, the EPP is "the family of the political centre-right, whose roots run deep in the history and civilisation of the European continent, and [which] has pioneered the European project from its inception".^[8]

The EPP was founded in Luxembourg on 8 July 1976 on the initiative of Jean Seitlinger; Leo Tindemans, then Prime Minister of Belgium, who became the first President of the EPP; and Wilfried Martens, who later became both President of the EPP and Prime Minister of Belgium. It had been preceded by the Secretariat International des partis démocratiques d'inspiration chrétienne, founded in 1925,^[9] the Nouvelles Equipes Internationales, founded in 1946^[10] (or 1948),^[9] and the European Union of Christian Democrats, founded in 1965.^[10]

In the late 1990s, the Finnish politician Sauli Niinistö negotiated the merger of the European Democrat Union (EDU), of which he was president, into the EPP. In October 2002, the EDU ceased its activities after being formally absorbed by the EPP at a special event in Estoril, Portugal. In recognition of his efforts, Niinistö was elected Honorary President of the EPP the same year.

The EPP has had seven Presidents:

No.	Image	Name	Tenure	Party	Member state
1	File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F050938-0028, Bonn, Tagung CDU-Bundesausschuss, Tindemans.jpg	Leo Tindemans (1922–2014)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".	1976–1985	CVP	Template:Country data Belgium
2	File:Piet Bukman 1980 (1).jpg	Piet Bukman (1934–2022)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".	1985–1987	CDA	Template:Country data Netherlands
3	File:Jacques Santer.jpg	Jacques Santer (born 1937)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".	1987–1990	CSV	Template:Country data Luxembourg
4	File:Wilfried Martens.jpg	Wilfried Martens (1936–2013)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".	1990–2013 <templatestyles src="Citation/styles.css"/>^[Died]	CD&V	Template:Country data Belgium
5	File:Joseph Daul par Claude Truong-Ngoc octobre 2013.jpg	Joseph Daul (born 1947)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".	2013–2019	The Republicans	Template:Country data France
6	File:EPP Summit, 24 March 2022, Brussels (51957155847) (cropped).jpg	Donald Tusk (born 1957)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".	2019–2022	Civic Platform	Template:Country data Poland
7	File:Manfred Weber May 2023.jpg	Manfred Weber (born 1972)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".	2022–	CSU	Template:Country data Germany

Platform and manifesto

File:A23A6062 (42165595065).jpg

Leo Varadkar, Angela Merkel and Jean-Claude Juncker at an EPP summit in June 2018

Political manifesto and platform

During its Congress in Bucharest in 2012, the EPP updated its political platform after 20 years (since its Congress in Athens in 1992) and approved a political manifesto in which it summarised its main values and policies.^[11]Script error: No such module "Unsubst".

The manifesto highlights:

Freedom as a central human right, coupled with responsibility
Respect for traditions and associations
Solidarity to help those in need, who in turn should also make an effort to improve their situation
Ensuring solid public finances
Preserving a healthy environment
Subsidiarity
Pluralist democracy and a social market economy

The manifesto also describes the EPP's priorities for the EU, including:

European Political Union
Direct election of the President of the European Commission
Completion of the European Single Market
Promotion of the family, improvements in education and health
Strengthening of the common immigration and asylum policy, and integrating immigrants
Continuation of enlargement of the EU, enhancement of the European Neighbourhood Policy and special relationship frameworks for countries that cannot, or do not want to, join the EU
Defining a truly common EU energy policy
Strengthening European political parties

Electoral manifesto

As a central part of its campaign for the European elections in 2009, the EPP approved its election manifesto at its Congress in Warsaw in April that year. The manifesto called for:^[12]

Creation of new jobs, continuing reforms and investment in education, lifelong learning, and employment to create opportunities for everyone.
Avoidance of protectionism, and coordination of fiscal and monetary policies.
Increased transparency and surveillance in financial markets.
Making Europe the market leader in green technology.
Increasing the share of renewable energy to at least 20 percent of the energy mix by 2020.
Family-friendly flexibility for working parents, better child care and housing, family-friendly fiscal policies, encouragement of parental leave.
A new strategy to attract skilled workers from the rest of the world to make Europe's economy more competitive, more dynamic and more knowledge-driven.

File:Flickr - europeanpeoplesparty - EPP Congress Warsaw (869).jpg

At its Congress in Warsaw in 2009 the EPP endorsed Barroso for a second term as President of the Commission.

The Fidesz crisis

Concerns that the Hungarian ruling party Fidesz Template:Efn and its leader Viktor Orbán were undermining the rule of law in Hungary caused a split in the EPP in the run-up of the 2019 European Parliament election.^[13] On one hand, the EPP had been reluctant for years to address Fidesz's stance against the rule of law, expressed by the Article 7 proceedings of the European Parliament. On the other hand, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, a prominent EPP-member, stated "I believe his [Fidesz's] place is not in the European People's Party".^[14] Orbán's campaigns targeting billionaire George Soros^[15] and Jean-Claude Juncker^[16] carried wide reverberations for Europe questioning the EPP's effort to install its lead candidate Manfred Weber as the next President of the European Commission.^[17]

After years of deferring a decision about the Fidesz issue,^[18] the EPP was eventually compelled to address the problem two months before the 2019 European elections, as 13 outraged member parties requested the Hungarian party's exclusion from the EPP due to its billboard campaign featuring Jean-Claude Juncker. 190 of the 193 EPP delegates supported the common agreement with Fidesz on 20 March 2019 to partially suspend its membership. According to it, Fidesz was "until further notice" excluded from EPP meetings and internal elections, but remained in the European People's Party Group of the European Parliament. Fidesz did not deliver on its earlier promise to leave the EPP in case of a penalty.^[19]

In February 2020, the EPP extended the suspension of Fidesz indefinitely.^[20]

On 2 April 2020, thirteen parties within the EPP issued a joint statement aimed at Donald Tusk, asking him to expunge Fidesz from the party.^[21] Three days before this, the Hungarian Parliament had passed a law, declaring a state of emergency within Hungary, granting Prime Minister Viktor Orbán the right to rule by decree.^[22]

On 3 March 2021, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced that Fidesz would leave the EPP group after it changed its internal rules (to allow suspension and expulsion of multiple deputies and their groups), although Fidesz remained a suspended member of the EPP itself.^[23] On 18 March 2021, Fidesz decided to leave the European People's Party.^[24]

In June 2024, The Hungarian Christian Democratic People's Party (KDNP), who serve in government with Fidesz, left the European People's Party.^[25]^[26]^[27]^[28] That same month, members of the newly elected Hungarian Tisza Party led by Peter Magyar, a former Fidesz insider, applied to join EPP.^[29]

German investigation

In April 2023, Belgian police and German investigators carried out a raid at the EPP headquarters in Brussels as part of an investigation in Germany.^[30]

Membership

Within the EPP there are three kinds of member organisations: full members, associate members and observers. Full members are parties from EU states. They have absolute rights to vote in all the EPP's organs and on all matters. Associate members have the same voting rights as full members except for matters concerning the EU's structure or policies. These associate members are parties from EU candidate countries and EFTA countries. Observer parties can participate in all the activities of the EPP, and attend the Congresses and Political Assemblies, but they do not have any voting rights.

Special status of "supporting member" is granted by the Presidency to individuals and associations. Although they do not have voting rights, they can be invited by the President to attend meetings of certain organs of the party.