BRUSSELS — The European Public Prosecutor’s Office closed its investigation into top officials at the European People’s Party, including the group’s leader Manfred Weber, an EPPO spokesperson confirmed to POLITICO. The case concerned allegations of misuse of EU funds dating back to 2019, when Weber was the center-right EPP’s lead candidate in the EU election. “After a thorough investigation — which included, among other things, witness hearings, extensive data collection, and bank account analysis — the EPPO concludes that there are no reasonable grounds to believe that a criminal offense has been committed,” the office said in a statement. The inquiry by EPPO, which is tasked with rooting out criminal abuse of EU money,  examined whether the three individuals had improperly received payments from both the EPP party — a pan-European umbrella organization of conservative national parties — and the EPP group, the party’s delegation in the European Parliament. The prosecutor’s statement reveals that the EPP president himself had been under investigation. The probe was previously understood to have been into several high-ranking officials. A Belgian police document seen by POLITICO at the time listed alleged offenses under consideration, including “forgery of a public document,” “forgery of public documents by a civil servant in the performance of duties,” “breach of trust,” “fraud,” and “public corruption.” Thursday’s EPPO statement doesn’t mention Weber by name, referring instead to “the president of a political group in the European Parliament and several of his collaborators.” However, as POLITICO previously reported, the only investigation of this kind conducted by EPPO concerned the EPP. A spokesperson for Weber declined to comment.

The centrist forces that have ruled Brussels for decades may no longer be able to pass legislation and could have to team up with right-wing and far-right parties, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola warned Thursday. Metsola was speaking at the EU summit a day after members of Parliament rejected a landmark proposal to cut red tape for businesses amid division over how far the EU should go in scaling back its laws. That vote sparked anger in national capitals. “Yesterday’s decision by the European Parliament is unacceptable,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said upon arrival at the EU leaders’ summit in Brussels, adding the decision was “a fatal mistake and must be corrected.”  However, Metsola said she believes the Parliament will find a way to reach agreement on key issues, even if it involves a break with the traditional ways of working. “Majorities are always strongest from the center out because we believe that this is the way to move Europe forward,” she said in a press conference after meeting the EU leaders. “But if this is not possible, I know that this House [the Parliament] will deliver regardless. Especially because the prime ministers around the table were unanimous in saying that this needs to happen.”  The Parliament’s major centrist groups — the European People’s Party (of Ursula von der Leyen and Metsola herself), Renew and the Socialists and Democrats — had agreed to back the red tape proposal. But in a secret ballot, a number of Socialist MEPs rebelled and voted against the deal. MEPs will vote again in November, and the EPP may need to rely on the far right to push through the deregulation package.   When asked how she felt about the right wing being needed to back legislation, Metsola said she would prefer majorities to come from the center but that this won’t always be possible. “To be very clear, the message to me from the Council is get the numbers where you find them,” Metsola said. “I have an institutional responsibility, I need to keep majorities working and I need to keep groups working in sync together. “Some positions cannot be bridged but many can,” Metsola concluded, adding that the centrist forces have found agreement on the likes of defense funding and agriculture policy but struggled to do so on migration and green simplification. “It’s not about majority; if anything, it’s about pragmatism,” she said. For decades, the main centrist forces have found ways to work together and exclude the far right. However, groups on the right enjoyed great success in the 2024 EU election, and working with those groups is becoming less taboo. Metsola said she had asked leaders for “their help” to make sure that MEPs “mirror the agenda” of the countries they represent, especially as some of the Socialist MEPs who voted down the agreement are part of governments pushing for the simplification package, such as the Germans, Austrians and Poles. There will likely be a lot more simplification proposals for the Parliament to vote on. In a letter dated Oct. 20, obtained by POLITICO, the leaders of Germany, France, Italy and others called for “a constant stream” of simplification proposals from the European Commission.

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor and a foreign affairs columnist at POLITICO Europe. “I don’t know what happened,” said French economist Jean Pisani-Ferry recently, lamenting President Emmanuel Macron’s unraveling grand centrist project. His bewilderment is shared by disoriented centrists across the continent, all wondering how the ground has yielded under their feet as the tectonic plates of European politics continue to relentlessly shift, throwing the familiar into disarray. But could this be the point of no return? The first of the latest tremors was the political comeback of Czech populist billionaire Andrej Babiš, a self-proclaimed Trumpist and Euroskeptic agitator. His ANO party grabbed 35 percent of the vote in the country’s parliamentary elections last Sunday, leaving Petr Fiala’s pro-Western coalition behind at 23 percent. Though falling short of an overall majority, Babiš — who lambasted the current center-right government for giving “Czech mothers nothing, and Ukrainians everything” — will no doubt relish teaming up with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and the far-right parties of the Patriots for Europe group in the European Parliament to disrupt any centrist “more Europe” policies. And seeking to tug the country away from supporting Ukraine, he has already pledged to scrap Czech ammunition supplies to Kyiv. Then, on Monday, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu resigned just hours after appointing a cabinet, plunging the country deeper into a political quagmire with its fractious parliament and lame-duck president in a political system designed by Charles de Gaulle for a powerful head of state. Macron has appointed and lost five prime ministers in two years and is still floundering. Could we be seeing the death throes of the Fifth Republic? At the end of the week, there will likely be more bad news for centrists in Portugal as well. Chega, the party of “God, fatherland and family” that in May became the official opposition, is set to do well in the country’s local elections — a harbinger of things to come. These are indeed heady, giddy times for national-conservative populists — and they’re celebrating as their rivals remain confounded. The outcome of the Czech election prompted the top populist leaders from across the continent to take to social media — including Orbán, Denmark’s Anders Vistisen, the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders, Austria’s Harald Vilimsky, France’s Marine Le Pen and Italy’s Matteo Salvini. “All across Europe, patriotic parties are being called to power by the people, who long to reclaim their freedom and prosperity!” Le Pen posted on X. But how did we get here? In the summer of 2024, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had crowed the “center is holding.” Following European Parliament elections that saw right-wing populists and national conservatives make serious inroads but fall short of the huge surge they were expecting, it seemed voters still largely backed centrists. The first of the latest tremors was the political comeback of Czech populist billionaire Andrej Babiš, a self-proclaimed Trumpist and Euroskeptic agitator. | Martin Divisek/EPA But von der Leyen was being complacent — a common characteristic of mainstream centrists from both the left and right since Brexit and U.S. President Donald Trump’s first election in 2016. Centrists were too quick to dismiss both Brexit and Trump’s first term as aberrations. The world would right itself, they said. Even as late as 2023, the Global Progress Action Summit in Montreal — a gathering of center-left politicians — saw boisterous talk of another possible “progressive moment,” with the Third Way politics shaped by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former U.S. President Bill Clinton a quarter-century ago cited as an example. But since those first populist shifts, the centrist crack-up has grown more apparent to everyone else. The British Labour Party’s general election win in 2024 was an outlier — testimony to the unpopularity of the Conservatives rather than an embrace of Prime Minister Keir Starmer or an indication of a political trend. And U.S. President Joe Biden’s 2020 win seemed more like a pause in the crumbling of the ancien régime. Meanwhile, centrists on both the left and right have made too many excuses, without nearly enough rigorous self-analysis or readiness to challenge group-think or shibboleths. Instead, they’ve muttered about “deplorables” and blamed their setbacks on populists weaponizing issues like net zero, immigration, cultural disorientation, identity anxieties and the cost-of-living squeeze. They’ve easily reached for Russian disinformation and demagogic manipulation to explain away their misfortunes — talking almost as though the here-and-now challenges and fears faced by ordinary families are made up or overblown. And they haven’t been able to ease the nagging widespread sense that the West is in a doom-loop of structural decline and lacks the political will to correct. Centrists have consistently failed to understand that the jolts taking place under their feet were forewarnings of even bigger political earthquakes to come as the world changed. Now demoralized, either too laggardly to rethink policies or too quick to dress themselves in populist clothes — as Starmer’s Labour government is now trying to do with tougher immigration rules — more cracks are surely to come. Why vote for copycats when you can vote for the real thing? In Germany, for example, Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s asylum crackdown has done nothing to stem the rising popularity of the hard-right Alternative for Germany party — at least in opinion polls. Merz’s approval ratings are dismal this month, with 70 percent of Germans unhappy with his performance. So are national conservatives now unstoppable? Maybe so, until the tectonic plates settle. Or at least until they’re exposed as having no real answers to the immense challenges of Europe’s anemic economic growth, poor competitiveness and massive public debt.

BRUSSELS — With four years still to go until the end of their mandates in the European Parliament, Italy’s center-left MEPs are already breaking up with Brussels. In the cafés and pizzerias of the EU quarter, they are plotting their return to “the beautiful country” — a move only exacerbated by regional elections this fall. The left-leaning Democratic Party (PD) lawmakers’ near-total obsession with local politics is making them increasingly irrelevant in the European Parliament, where they are seen as punching below their weight.  Despite being the biggest national group in the Socialists and Democrats caucus, the PD is frequently outmaneuvered by smaller delegations with more discipline and a better knowledge of the Brussels machine. (The situation is also not helped by two of the Italians being suspended.) The future election of the S&D group leader — currently Spain’s Iratxe García Pérez — during the midterm reshuffle in 2027 will be a litmus test of who matters the most inside the Socialist party. It should be a moment for the Italian left to step up, but it is an open secret in Brussels that the PD’s heavyweights are more interested in power games back home.  Ever since its creation in 2007, the PD — currently the largest opposition party to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing Brothers of Italy — has been ridden by tribal warfare, ideological divides and personality clashes.  This is proving a major liability in the Socialist power struggles in Brussels, where internal unity often matters more than size. “The Germans and Spaniards are fewer, but they matter more,” said a PD lawmaker who, like others quoted in this story, was granted anonymity to breach confidences. “Unlike the Spanish and German delegations, the PD don’t vote united. It’s not clear who they respond to,” echoed a non-Italian Socialist party insider. Party lifers who have made a name for themselves in Italy are seen as out of touch in a city that thrives on technical expertise and behind-the-scenes schmoozing with foreign colleagues.  “The PD have three or four microgroups within the delegation, and we notice that some have tensions with [party leader] Elly Schlein,” said a Socialist MEP from another delegation.  The future election of the Socialist group leader — currently Spain’s Iratxe García Pérez — during the midterm reshuffle in 2027 will be a litmus test for the party. | Ronald Wittek/EPA Critics say that a majority of Italy’s center-left MEPs spend more time canvassing in their domestic constituencies than operating in the rarefied backrooms of Brussels’ power centers. Only a handful have a permanent flat in the EU capital, sniped another PD insider.  “The new MEPs appear to be on loan to the European Parliament,” said David Allegranti, an Italian journalist and PD expert. “They needed a one-year placement, but they’re coming back for the regional elections this year — and potentially for the national vote in 2027,” he added.  Such is the extent of their political machinations to return to frontline national politics that the Italian daily Il Foglio compared the PD’s Brussels squad to the Count of Monte Cristo, the Alexandre Dumas character who spent years plotting his escape (and revenge) from a prison cell on a rocky fortress island.  But unlike Dumas’ hero, the MEPs are not seeking vengeance. They want a road back to political relevance.  TIME TO GO HOME The first, and so far the only, PD lawmaker to have left Brussels is Matteo Ricci, who is contesting a local election on Sept. 28 and 29 in the Marche region in central Italy.  A PD bigwig and former mayor of Bari, Antonio Decaro, chair of the European Parliament’s environment and food safety committee, has announced he will run for the presidency of his native Puglia region in the fall.  If he wins the election, his party colleague Annalisa Corrado — a Schlein loyalist — is the favorite to take up his post as the head of the European Parliament’s powerful environment committee.  Other bigwigs, such as the former mayor of Florence, Dario Nardella, and the ex-governor of Emilia-Romagna, Stefano Bonaccini, are rumored to be trying to return to Rome as national MPs in the upcoming general election in 2027, according to multiple PD insiders. It is also important to note that it is not only the Socialists who are pining for their homeland. EU lawmaker Pasquale Tridico from the anti-establishment 5Star Movement will contest the election to lead the Calabria region in October. “Few of them speak English and are interested in European topics,” the PD lawmaker said of his colleagues. “This reflects badly on the whole delegation.” The PD has “three or four microgroups within the delegation, and we notice that some have tensions with PD party leader Elly Schlein,” said one Socialist MEP. | Michele Maraviglia/EPA Despite the exodus, the PD does have some powerful and respected figures within the European Socialists, who have built a good reputation.  Disputing the notion that the PD punches below its weight, a third Socialist MEP pointed to Italian colleague Camilla Laureti’s position as vice chair of the S&D and to Fabrizia Panzetti clinching the powerful secretary-general post.  The chair of the PD’s delegation, Nicola Zingaretti, declined to be interviewed for this story. NOT PULLING THEIR WEIGHT Italian politicians with big ambitions rarely dream of becoming MEPs. What is generally seen as a second-rate job, however, became a safe haven for a handful of political has-beens who were left jobless at home — and weren’t completely in sync with PD leader Schlein’s lurch to the left. By picking a mix of party lifers, local caciques and media celebrities, the PD emerged from the 2024 European election as the largest Socialist delegation in Parliament. But this didn’t translate into real power in Brussels. To everyone’s surprise, Schlein refused to claim the Socialist leadership last summer even though this is generally awarded to the largest national delegation. In exchange, she secured an informal agreement with the other delegations that the PD would lead the group in the second half of the parliamentary mandate starting in mid-2027. However, with over a year left until the reshuffle, this promise is unlikely to materialize. The Spanish delegation is eager to retain control of the group and is pushing to extend the mandate of incumbent García Pérez to secure stability. Meanwhile, the German delegation is also expected to vie for the position — especially if it does not secure the European Parliament presidency. The Parliament president job is meant to go to a Socialist MEP in 2027, according to an informal agreement struck last year with the center-right European People’s Party. Yet, such an outcome would reignite calls to replace the incumbent Socialist European Council President António Costa with an EPP figure in the midterm reshuffle.   One high-up Socialist MEP suggested that the Italians would likely give away the presidency to a Spaniard or a German in exchange for keeping the secretary-general post. “[The PD’s group has] people that are very popular in Italy … [but they] have not managed to build beyond that [in Brussels], which limits their potential,” said a fourth Socialist MEP.

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German MEP Carola Rackete, who became famous for a public spat over migration with Italy’s far-right chief Matteo Salvini, announced her resignation from the European Parliament on Wednesday. “My candidacy and mandate have always aimed to contribute to the renewal of the German Left party — a process that is progressing successfully,” Rackete said in a statement. Rackete, a German conservation ecologist, social and climate activist, was elected to the Parliament with The Left group in the 2024 European election.   She shot to prominence in 2019 as captain of the rescue vessel Sea-Watch 3, when she defied Italy’s closed port policy by docking in Lampedusa with 53 saved migrants. Rackete was arrested shortly after the landing but later cleared by an Italian judge, who ruled she acted out of necessity and did not commit any criminal offense. Following the Lampedusa incident, Salvini — who was serving as Italy’s interior minister at the time — publicly criticized Rackete, calling her a “German criminal,” a “rich and spoiled communist” and an “accomplice of human traffickers,” in a series of Facebook posts and public comments. In 2019, Rackete sued Salvini for defamation. But a Milan court ruled in 2023 it could not proceed with the case against Salvini, reportedly for procedural reasons. Rackete was named as one of the POLITICO 28 Class of 2020 “Dreamers,” highlighting her defiance of Italy’s anti-immigration policies. During her year in Parliament, Rackete served on the committees for environment, monetary affairs, and agriculture, where she focused on climate justice and advocated for those most affected by inaction on global warming. Her seat is expected to be filled by Martin Günther, a fellow candidate from The Left in Germany who ran unsuccessfully alongside Rackete in the 2024 election. “I will continue Carola’s fight for climate justice using the resources of the mandate. As an economist, the economic aspects of this struggle are especially important to me. A more social and ecological EU will only be possible if we reclaim it from the super-rich and their lobbyists,” Günther said in a statement.