During the vote, the largest group, the European People’s Party, at one point supported an amendment put forward by the far-right Sovereign Europe Group, the group surrounding the AfD.
This amendment did not ultimately win a majority, but was in direct conflict with the compromise reached by the European People’s Party with the Social Democrats and Liberals, according to those constituencies. “Tensions between political groups are very high, and our group feels betrayed,” said Romanian socialist Victor Negrescu, who is in charge of budget negotiations.
Hilde Footmann (Open VLD) thought it was “a scandal that the Christian Democrats are breaking the cordon sanitaire here”. The amendment in question was about funding physical border infrastructure, but on such a topic “you can never vote with the far right,” Vootmans said.
“They mean their modification in an aggressive sense, like Trump’s wall. And we fit that.” She believes that infrastructure at Europe’s external borders should certainly be part of the solution, as long as migration can take place in a humane, but controlled, way.
