The cordon sanitaire at the European Parliament has been breached: the report on democracy has been assigned to Patriots for Europe

Brussels – The famous “cordon sanitaire” that held pro-European groups together, leaving the far right out in the cold when it came to posts and appointments, now seems destined to disappear. The European Parliament’s Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) has voted today (5 May) on the allocation of the own-initiative report “Strengthening democratic accountability and enhancing Parliament’s political oversight of the Commission” to the far-right group Patriots for Europe (PfE). The parliamentary committee approved assigning the dossier to the Eurosceptic group by 14 votes to 11. 

As in other cases, it was the vote of the members of the European People’s Party (EPP)—one of the groups considered pro-European and the main force within the so-called Ursula majority—that made the difference. Seven EPP MEPs on the AFCO Committee voted to assign the report to the Patriots for Europe group, marking a breach of the “cordon sanitaire”—the process through which centrist pro-European groups join forces to deny the far right positions, such as the chairs or vice-chairs of European Parliament committees. 

This is not the first time that the European People’s Party has broken ranks by allying itself with anti-European forces. On 13 November 2025, during the plenary session in Strasbourg, the European People’s Party joined forces with the far-right groups of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and Patriots for Europe (PFE) for the vote on the first Omnibus package. This coalition arose from the failure of negotiations conducted by the EPP with other, more moderate political groups and marks a change of course. There was a time when the Popular Party was still part of the pro-European, centrist alliance: the other political families decided to exclude the Eurosceptic MEPs from the sovereignist group founded by Viktor Orbán from the allocation of posts in the bureaux of the parliamentary committees. “Those who are against the European project cannot represent the Parliament,” had declared the leader of the People’s Party (EPP), Manfred Weber. Now, the mood seems to have changed.