Macron forms ‘New Europeans’ club to unite fragmented EU liberals

BRUSSELS — French President Emmanuel Macron’s party is forging a fresh alliance on the European stage in a bid to unite the EU’s liberal forces once and for all.

New Europeans, founded this month as an association under French law, will bring together Macron’s Renaissance party and other French, Romanian, Slovenian, Polish and Danish parties. Its 22 MEP members see it as a first step to bringing all liberal forces together under one roof after the election.

Macron’s French party Renaissance has neither joined nor created a European Union-level party since it first sent MEPs to the European Parliament in 2019 — and New Europeans is not a political party either. However, its members see it as a first step to creating one.

“We want to convince everyone to join a single [European] political party,” said Gilles Boyer, a French MEP from a party called Horizons created by former French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, allied to Macron. “The message is that we’re uniting and that’ll make us stronger,” Boyer, who will be the association’s treasurer, added.

Macron’s MEPs sit with the likes of Boyer and liberals from other countries in a grouping called Renew Europe, which is currently the Parliament’s third-largest force with 102 MEPs. The liberal MEPs allied to Macron’s deputies hail from two EU-level liberal parties that predated his outfit by decades: the classical liberal bloc called Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party (ALDE) long-dominated by Dutchman Mark Rutte, and the small centrist European Democratic Party (EDP).

With all its various factions, the liberals’ fragmentation on the European level could weaken them just as the far right is surging ahead of June’s EU election.

“If you want to consolidate a bloc against the far right, then you need to consolidate. We’re sending that message,” said Michal Kobosco, president of the New Europeans association and also the chairman of Polska 2050 political party.

Forming an EU-level political party would also give Renaissance access to millions of euros of EU funding from the European Parliament’s budget.

“For five years, it was alright because it also allowed us to have more freedom, but after the summer it’ll be time to talk about the status of a proper European party,” one of the people involved in the organization, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the proposal, said.

Currently, the liberals’ European election campaign is being led by three politicians — Germany’s Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, France’s Valérie Hayer and Italy’s Sandro Gozi —  drawn from each of the streams.

“I think we can be more efficient if we work together in a European political party,” said Dacian Cioloș, a Romanian MEP from the REPER party, who argued in favor of a merger between ALDE, EDP and the political parties rallied under the banner of New Europeans. 

However, the new formation risks ruffling the feathers of the more established — and in some cases more right-leaning —  wings of the liberals like ALDE. 

Some of the other parties in the liberal grouping were not happy about Renaissance’s proposition, according to another person involved in New Europeans, who was also granted anonymity to speak about the matter.

Ilhan Kyuchyuk, co-president of ALDE, one of the two European parties within the liberal grouping, appeared dismissive of the new venture.

“I have no clue about it,” he said. “It’s not a political party. It’s an association, it’s an NGO thing. I’m focused on my own things,” he said. Forming one grand party will happen “one day” but for now the focus is on the campaign, the Bulgarian MEP added. 

New Europeans counts among its members 314 lawmakers in various national parliaments and in four governments (France, Slovenia, Poland and Denmark). Macron and Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob are among its most powerful members. There are already eight vice presidents of the new association: Cioloș, Hayer, Nathalie Loiseau, Bergur Løkke Rasmussen, Kirsten Munch Andersen, Klemen Grošelj, Irena Joveva and Ramona Strugariu.

It was one of Macron’s lieutenants in Brussels who laid the foundations of this new structure, several people involved in New Europeans told POLITICO. Stéphane Séjourné, a former MEP who was president of the Renew group until his appointment as France’s foreign affairs minister, started building alliances with parties like Polska 2050 during a European tour. Séjourné will still play an important role as the secretary general of the association.

It is unclear what role the French president will play in New Europeans, although his official status of the liberals’ leader will count.

“Macron is the leader of the strongest party and we respect this,” said Kobosco. 

Although New Europeans — registered as Les Nouveaux Européens in France — wants to keep a low profile and claim they have held discussions with their partners, the move came as a surprise to some members of their political family.

“If you want to establish trust, then you need to create the right conditions to trust each other,” said Marie-Pierre Vedrenne, whose centrist political party MoDem is part of EDP.