The European Parliament’s committees formally elected one chair and four vice-chairs in constitutive meetings on Tuesday, forming the committee Bureau, but denied far-right parties participation by holding them off with a cordon sanitaire.

Committees are the lifeblood of parliamentary work, preparing amendments to the Commission’s legislative proposals before presenting them for a plenary vote.

As anticipated, high-level positions that had been informally assigned to the far-right group Patriots for Europe (PfE) on a proportional basis according to the group’s third largest size in the chamber were rebuffed by the pro-EU majority.

Instead, pro-EU groups opposed the far-right candidates, adhering to the cordon sanitaire strategy, which aims to exclude far-right fringe elements from significant institutional roles.

Historically, this practice has excluded lawmakers from far-right parties such as Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN), Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz, and Matteo Salvini’s Lega from power roles in the Parliament.

Following the Parliament’s proportional rules, the Patriots had claimed chairmanships of the Transport and Tourism (TRAN) and Culture and Education (CULT) committees, as well as vice-presidencies in the Agriculture (AGRI), Development (DEVE), Environment (ENVI), Legal Affairs (JURI), Civil and Home Affairs (LIBE), and Budget Control (CONT) committees.

After losing out on two European Parliament vice-presidencies last week in Strasbourg, the far-right group were once again blocked from obtaining these remaining key committee posts, which were reassigned to other groups.

For the TRAN presidency, the Patriots nominated Roman Haider from the Austrian Freedom Party (FPO), who lost to Greek EPP candidate Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi. Haider accepted the result without congratulating the new chair. “You’re denying us democratic rights that you’re claiming for yourself,” he said after the vote.

“Every bad deed causes bad karma, and I’m sure it will haunt you for the next five years,” he added before leaving the room.

A similar situation unfolded at the constitutive meeting of the culture committee, where the Patriots were controversially seeking chairmanship of a board that steers issues surrounding media freedom and education.

The CULT Patriots’ coordinator, Catherine Griset, proposed Malika Sorel, who she introduced as a French intellectual of Algerian origin who has received the Legion of Honor.

Despite Griset’s call to respect strict proportional allotment, the majority voted for German Greens candidate Nela Riehl as chair.

In the ENVI committee, the Patriots’ candidate from the Spanish Vox party, Jorge Buxadé, lost his bid for vice-president to the EPP candidate from Tisza, Orbán’s main rival in Hungary. Buxadé expressed his disdain, stating he was honoured not to be elected by a Parliament that does not respect freedom of opinion.

For Fabrice Leggeri, former Executive Director of the EU border agency Frontex and now one of the most prominent MEPs of PfE’s National Rally, what happened today “proves that the spirit of democracy is not present in all political groups in our European Parliament.”

“We want to play along with democracy, we’ve been elected by more than 20 million people across the European Union and so we have the legitimacy to express their wishes,” he told Euronews.

On the other hand, cordon sanitaire seemed to be eroded for the other hard-right group, the European Conservatives (ECR) as Poland’s Bogdan Rzońca has become the first member of Poland’s controversial right-wing Law and Justice Party, PiS, to chair a European Parliament committee, after winning a knife-edge vote today.

Video editor • Ines Trindade Pereira