After a report surfaced alleging secret deals between members of the European People’s Party (EPP) and right‑wing groups in the European Parliament, pressure on the European Union has intensified.
The SPD’s first parliamentary secretary, Dirk Wiese, told “Handelsblatt” that a “rapid and comprehensive investigation is now required to determine whether a structured cooperation actually exists between the EPP and right‑wing factions in the EU Parliament”.
Wiese placed the onus on the EPP’s group leader, Manfred Weber (CSU), demanding that “Mr. Weber must respond honestly at once”. He dismissed the staff‑level responsibility that Weber raised as a “cheap distraction technique” and argued that whoever sets strategy as group chair must ensure “the red lines of his group and its members are respected”.
Green Party parliamentary manager Irene Mihalic also demanded clarity. She warned that the CDU and CSU leaders, Friedrich Merz and Markus Söder, had “promised that there would be no cooperation between the CDU/CSU and the AfD”. If messages in a WhatsApp group now suggest the opposite, the CDU‑CSU top officials must reaffirm that their pledge still stands. The chats allegedly show that joint voting by Christian democrats and far‑right parties “was not a coincidence but was planned and agreed upon”.
Alexander Hoffmann, the CSU state group leader, defended Weber against claims that the EPP had worked closely with right‑wing factions in the European Parliament. He noted that Weber had indirectly admitted the collaboration. When speaking to “Tagesschau”, he said the EPP “does not want to cooperate, but we need a solution to the matter”.
Hoffmann told RTL and ntv on Monday that there will be no collaboration between the Union and the AfD simply because the AfD “seeks to destroy the Union” which is supposedly its declared goal. He added that the Union’s policy is aimed at rendering the AfD redundant, pointing particularly to the migration turn. He warned that politics today is “only dealing with itself” and that “we must address the questions that occupy people-migration included”. While Weber had noted that the SPD is very rigid on a European level, Hoffmann said he was grateful for the SPD’s clear stance on issues such as the “Return Hubs” policy.
In the alleged collaboration between the EPP and right‑wing parties, a key element involved the deportation of asylum seekers to so‑called “Return Hubs” in countries outside the EU.