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European People's Party

The EPP is Europe’s center-right political family. It strives for a Europe of values close to the people and based on democracy, transparency and responsibility, as well as prosperity through the promotion of a social market economy. As the political heirs of the EU’s founding fathers, the EPP included 74 parties from 39 countries. It had the largest Group in the European Parliament after the 2009 election and most heads of state and government of any political family in the European Council, as well as members in the Commission.

The center-right European People's Party (EPP) will build a bastion against radical forces on the right and left, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said 09 June 2024. Preliminary results from the four-day EU elections showed the EPP was set to remain the biggest party in the European Parliament, with a projected 181 seats. "No majority can be formed without the EPP and together ... we will build a bastion against the extremes from the left and from the right," she said. Von der Leyen is seeking a second five-year term as president of the European Commission, the powerful EU executive arm. Preliminary election results also showed that far-right, nationalist parties had made the biggest gains in the polls.

Hungary's ruling right-wing Fidesz party on 03 March 2021 quit the conservative European People's Party (EPP) grouping in the European Parliament, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said. "I hereby inform you that Fidesz MEPs resign their membership in the EPP group," Orban said in a letter to EPP group leader Manfred Weber, posted on Twitter by one of Orban's ministers. The decision to quit came immediately after the EPP voted for a change in its rules that was billed as a way to expel Orban's hardline nationalist party from their ranks. The conservative bloc had backed by 148 members to 28 a measure that would allow them in future to vote to suspend or dismiss an entire national party delegation.

Orban accused the EPP of "trying to mute and disable our democratically elected MEPs" and called the vote "a hostile move against Fidesz and our voters", as well as "anti-democratic, unjust and unacceptable". The EPP, which brings together Europe's main centre-right parties, is the biggest single voting bloc in the European Parliament and the party of both Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel. The departure of the Fidesz group ends years of rancour between EPP parties over whether to kick out Orban's party or keep its MEPs on board in the centre-right grouping to avoid them siding with eurosceptic populists.

Conservatives and liberals usurped Socialists in the 1999 European Parliament elections to become the largest political group in the body. Under the name the European People's Party and European Democrats (EPP-ED), mainstream conservative and center-right party members gained 292 of the 786 seats in the European Parliament.

The initial Christian Democrat group was founded in 1953 decades before the European Coal and Steel Community evolved into the European Union. The group changed its name to European People's Party in 1979, which was supplemented by "European Democrats" in 1999 under pressure from British conservatives. One of the group's declared aims is to resist the political priorities of the left and work towards a more competitive and democratic Europe. In addition to adoption of the EU Constitution, which has been hampered by disputes over voting powers and the failure to mention Christianity, the EPP-ED is focused on integrating the new EU member states from central and eastern Europe.