CEE EU Political Group Could Deal Blow To Meloni's ECR

Despite strong results for the conservative European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the recent European Parliament elections, it could find itself falling back in membership numbers if speculation about a nascent central and eastern European group comes to fruition. The ECR came third in the EP elections, overtaking the liberal Renew Europe (RE) group, giving ECR leader Italian PM Giorgia Meloni a significant amount of leverage in EU talks and the likelihood of senior committee positions for its MEPs in the EP.

• However, talks are believed to be ongoing between a number of CEE parties. These are Hungarian PM Viktor Orban's Fidesz, Slovakian PM Robert Fico's Smer-SD, former Czech PM Andrej Babis' ANO, and former Slovenian PM Janesz Jansa's SDS (currently in the EPP).
• Former Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki has said there is a '50/50' chance that the Law and Justice Party (PiS) looks to join the nascent CEE group. Talking to Politico, Morawiecki said that “It’s quite obvious that we could be united on a geographical platform and not [an] ideological platform. I’m less and less interested in all those ideological elements of the jigsaw,”.
• The loss of PiS' 20 MEPs would take the ECR seat total below that of RE.
• To form an official political group in the EP two criteria must be met: total membership representing +3.3% of all MEPs (23 in total), and members from one-quarter of EU member states (seven). The five parties listed above would comfortably cross the first threshold, but not the second.