If you want to know how the European Parliament intends to shape major policy battles on deregulation, climate, tech and the EU budget, as well as prepare for the midterm top-jobs reshuffle and an election year that threatens to reshape the bloc, certain voices are more important than others. Of the Parliament’s 720 members, only a handful will truly influence what comes next — from heavyweights steering landmark legislation to dynamic duos working hard behind closed doors. They’ll be doing that work against a backdrop of two years of growing mistrust between Europe’s biggest mainstream political families (the European People’s Party and the Socialists and Democrats), an increasingly powerful far right, a sweeping simplification and competitiveness drive, and a heated migration debate.
Here are the 17 MEPs to watch and the political battles that will define the months ahead. The Parliament president will sit at the center of the EPP-S&D rift during the midterm top-jobs reshuffle. The EPP is determined that Metsola should remain in her job, but the S&D insists it’s their turn to have someone in the top seat.
How that battle turns out will be a key test of whether Europe’s centrist alliance can continue working together after two years of infighting or descend into a nasty standoff. If it’s the latter, Metsola could try to seek a third term as president with support from the broad network of MEPs she has cultivated over the past five years, including on the right and far right of the hemicycle. If Marine Le Pen becomes French president next year, Bellamy could be the man that EPP chief Manfred Weber gets to conduct damage control in the Parliament.
The architect of the EU’s tough new returns regulation, who voted with the far-right Patriots group, Bellamy is a trusted Weber lieutenant, serving as EPP treasurer and group vice chair. Just as the EPP sought to bring Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy into the EU fold, it may try to do the same with Le Pen’s National Rally — and Bellamy, whose Republicans party has moved closer to the National Rally back in France, could be the one calling them. Italy has the S&D’s second-largest national delegation, behind Spain, and S&D vice chair Camilla Laureti is tasked with making that weight count.
Her portfolio puts her inside Parliament’s engine room — covering plenary session preparation, the Conference of Presidents (meetings of top MEPs), and group strategy — making her key to ensuring the Socialists deliver on any deal to rebuild the center and pull the EPP away from far-right majorities. Laureti is also Italian Democratic Party leader Elly Schlein’s eyes and ears in Brussels, an important role ahead of Italy’s 2027 national election. Laureti’s delicate task is to keep potential tensions between the Democratic Party and the Five Star Movement in the Parliament from spilling into Rome and exposing cracks in the country’s anti-Meloni opposition.
Hayer chairs the Renew Europe group at a moment when liberals are losing ground across the bloc. She is trying to recruit outcast MEPs and lift Renew from being the fifth-largest group in the parliament. She is also positioning Renew as the bridge between EPP leader Manfred Weber and S&D leader Iratxe García, pushing for steadier cooperation between the traditional centrist allies (and Renew needs stability, as roughly half of its MEPs vote with the right-wing bloc when the EPP joins forces with the far right).
Extract — continue reading at the source.
