The EPP leader in Valencia calls for centrality against ultra-nationalists

Although Monday's blackout hovered over the European People's Party (EPP) congress being held in Valencia throughout yesterday, and its own leader, Manfred Weber, called for improved infrastructure in light of the evidence of the Iberian Peninsula's vulnerability, which he extended to the entire European Union—"we are interconnected"—the purely ideological dimension of the meeting took center stage at a time when the "authoritarian wave," which has already swept across the United States, is battering the Old Continent's dikes.

After the European Parliament elections in which the EPP again emerged as the most voted-for political party and German Christian Democrat Ursula von der Leyen managed to retain the presidency of the Commission, not without setbacks (such as the Spanish People's Party's rejection of Socialist Teresa Ribera's candidacy for commissioner), in alliance with Social Democrats and Liberals, Weber asserted the centrality of these three major groups in the face of extremism of both stripes.

The leader of the European People's Party (EPP) blesses the cordon sanitaire (health cordon) for the FPÖ extremists in Austria.

In this sense, and having overcome the hypothesis that a pact with one of the groups of the diverse European far right would be necessary if the traditional tripartite government failed to secure an absolute majority in the European Parliament, something that ultimately did not happen, the president of the EPP, who in his capacity as internal rival of Von der Leyen had toyed with the possibility of a rapprochement with the more radical theses, yesterday made a profession of European faith and set his red lines.

Assuming that the social democrats are not the worst adversaries of the conservatives, but that those who compete directly with the EPP are the extremists and "not so much the center-left" - something that in Spain the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, faced with the chimera of a grand coalition with the PSOE, which makes him exclusively dependent on Vox, could not formulate in the same terms - Weber differentiated between the far right that defines itself as European, defends Ukraine against Russia and believes in human rights, that is, the one represented by the Italian Giorgia Meloni, versus the pro-Russian ones of the Hungarian Viktor Orbán, in whose group, Patriots for Europe, the ultra-nationalist MEPs of Vox have converged.

In the current turbulent geopolitical context, and under the threat of a trade war by US President Donald Trump, Weber believes the time has come to separate the wheat from the chaff and "respond to this authoritarian wave" that has reached a country as close to home for a Bavarian as Austria, where the FPÖ extremists have been ousted from government despite receiving the most votes at the polls thanks to an agreement between the three main traditional parties – conservatives, social democrats, and liberals – just as is the case in the European Union.

"That's why we decided not to be with the far right in Austria," Weber concluded, faced with a dilemma: the famous cordon sanitaire around the radical right, which will be repeated again and again in Europe.

Be that as it may, during his speech on the first day of the congress in Valencia, the leader of the European Conservatives expressed pride in leading a "strong" EPP and highlighted the importance of regional governments—such as that of the Valencian Community, whose president, Carlos Mazón, has been in a very difficult position since his negligent handling of the floods of October 29—in cementing his project and "achieving promising results."

Without being able to ignore either the tragedy caused by the rains six months ago, with more than two hundred deaths, or the previous day's blackout, Weber urged his colleagues to work "from the grassroots" with the goal of "being prepared at all levels" to face the "challenges." Because for the EPP, which claims to be a "serious, reliable, and realistic" party, and thanks to which it has achieved the results its leader praised, the "reasonable" thing now is to strengthen "energy and environmental security."

Dolors Montserrat Day

The Valencian conclave of the European People's Party (EPP) concludes today with the elevation of Catalan Dolors Montserrat to the position of general secretary of the party. Born in 1973 in Sant Sadurní d'Anoia, where she began her political career as a councilor after studying law, the MEP, daughter of the first female spokesperson for a political group in the Parliament of Catalonia, with whom she shares a name and a "pragmatic feminism," served as Minister of Health, Social Services, and Equality in Mariano Rajoy's government (2016-18) before moving to Brussels, where her great work ethic and professionalism stand out as the main merits for the work she will now carry out within the EPP.